Who was Hazel Scott?

Sadly, schools today don't teach about amazing people like Hazel Scott and I felt bad that I didn't even know who she was either before Professor Smith taught us. There were so many black figures during the civil rights era that have gotten forgotten because of the superiority of white people.

Hazel Scott was a pianist prodigy from when she was just a little girl. She was born in Spain in 1920 but eventually moved to New York at the age of four. In New York, she lived only with her mother who was also a piano performer. 

Hazel tried out for the Julliard School of Music at the age of eight which was very popular and well-credited at the time. She was admitted and the rest was history. She attended the school and was a thriving musician by the time she was thirteen when she was playing in her mother's jazz band. 

A young Hazel Scott posing for a picture

Hazel Scott eventually was the first African-American woman to host her own TV show. Aside from her brilliant piano skills, she was also a key part of the Civil Rights Movement.

TV poster for The Hazel Scott Show

She was the type of person that would never abide by the rules of segregation even if it meant losing her job. Considering she was a huge star in her twenties and thirties she got treated much better than the average African-American but it was still rough for her at times.

She moved out to LA where there was a large sense of racism in the rich-profiting Hollywood industry. She also was offered many roles when she first moved out there but declined a lot of them because the studio wanted her to pose as a "singing maid". 

Hazel always declined those sorts of roles because she believed it was demeaning to her and to black people. She eventually starred in some movies where she played herself but her time in the movie industry eventually came to an end. It ended after Hazel was in a scene where other black ladies were dressed in raggedy clothing saying goodbye to her and she made the studio put them in nice clean dresses. The studio head eventually blacklisted her because of this and the many other stances she held toward racial discrimination. 

Not only that but she also would never perform in segregated audiences. She could have just done these things like play at those audiences and perform in those movie roles but she didn't because she knew that declining was more important than fame and money. 

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