JILL WATTS
JILL WATTS is a Professor of History at California State University San Marcos and is currently the Coordinator of the Master of Arts in History. She is the author of three books, Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood, Mae West: An Icon in Black and White, and God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story. Her fourth book entitled The Black Cabinet: African American Brain Trusters in the Age of Roosevelt, is forthcoming from Grove Atlantic.
THE BLACK CABINET
THE UNTOLD STORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND POLITICS DURING THE AGE OF ROOSEVELT
Grove Atlantic - May 12, 2020
In the early 20th century, most African Americans still lived in the South, disenfranchised, impoverished, terrorized by white violence, and denied the basic rights of citizenship. As the Democrats swept into the White House on a wave of black defectors from the Party of Lincoln, a group of African American intellectuals―legal minds, social scientists, media folk―sought to get the community’s needs on the table. This would become the Black Cabinet, a group of African American racial affairs experts working throughout the New Deal, forming an unofficial advisory council to lobby the President. But with the white Southern vote so important to the fortunes of the Party, the path would be far from smooth.
Most prominent in the Black Cabinet were Mary McLeod Bethune, an educator close to Eleanor Roosevelt, and her “boys”: Robert Weaver, a Harvard-educated economist who pioneered enforcement standards for federal anti-discrimination guidelines (and, years later, the first African American Cabinet secretary); Bill Hastie, a lawyer who would become a federal appellate judge; Al Smith, head of the largest black jobs program in the New Deal at the WPA; and Robert Vann, a newspaper publisher whose unstinting reporting on the administration’s shortcomings would keep his erstwhile colleagues honest. Ralph Bunche, Walter White of the NAACP, A. Philip Randolph, and others are part of the story as well. But the Black Cabinet was never officially recognized by FDR, and with the demise of the New Deal, it disappeared from history.
praise for the black cabinet
“A well-researched, urgent, and necessary history of black folks during the New Deal that excavates the too often ignored history of black female genius behind racial progress.”—Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author
“Jill Watts’ timely, deeply absorbing narrative unravels the little known but highly significant behind-the scenes account of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unofficial Black Cabinet, and their relentless determination that New Deal socio-economic justice include Black Americans. The voices of the historical actors come right through the pages and give a flavor to the narrative as though you were actually on the scene... A powerful piece of scholarship and a great story.”―Margaret Washington, author of Sojourner Truth’s America
“A thoroughly researched history of important black activists.”—Kirkus
“Watts (Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood), a professor of history at California State University, San Marcos, delivers a unique and enlightening portrait of ‘the informal group of black federal employees’ who sought to advance African-American interests during the New Deal… Watts finds drama in committee meetings and unemployment surveys, and expertly tracks her subjects across the maze of federal bureaucracy. The result is a groundbreaking reappraisal of an unheralded chapter in the battle for civil rights.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Meticulously researched and beautifully written.”—BookPage
“[A] vivid, penetrating study.”—Shelf Awareness
“Meticulously researched and elegantly written.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“A dramatic piece of nonfiction that recovers the history of a generation of leaders that helped create the environment for the civil rights battles in decades that followed Roosevelt’s death.”—Library Journal
“Watts is . . . at her best when she gives a frank accounting of the barriers the Black Cabinet encountered. Again and again its members pushed for a desperately needed reform, only to have it rejected ― or simply ignored ― by an administration much more interested in appeasing the segregationist South . . . The value of this thoughtful book [is] clear.”―New York Times Book Review
“My great-uncle Frank Horne, a poet, a doctor and an educator, was a member of FDR’s so-called ‘Black Cabinet.’ For the first time, this fascinating new book tells the whole story of the victories and defeats of these brilliant black New Dealers and the dynamic, charismatic black woman, Mary McLeod Bethune, who was their leader.”―Gail Lumet Buckley, author of The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights with One African American Family
“Jill Watts here tells stories of the fascinating characters who formed what has been nicknamed the ‘Black Cabinet’ of FDR. Making her subjects come alive for the reader, she portrays them as courageous individuals motivated by a combination of personal ambition and principled devotion to the cause of black rights, which the New Deal by no means embraced with enthusiasm. These crusaders paved the way for the political transformation of the African-American community from Republican to Democrat, and prefigured the Black Civil Rights Movement.”―Daniel Walker Howe, author of Pulitzer-Prize winning, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
“Watts’ compelling account of a diverse set of early twentieth-century public figures―with the remarkable Mary McLeod Bethune at the center―who labored to make the Federal Government work for and be accountable to African Americans is important and timely. One comes away from this deeply researched and engaging narrative with a rich and textured sense of the work the members of the Black Cabinet accomplished in the decades before the modern Civil Rights Movement and the stakes and significance of their efforts.”―Judith Weisenfeld, author of New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration
HATTIE MCDANIEL
BLACK AMBITION, WHITE HOLLYWOOD
Amistad - February 6, 2007
Hattie McDaniel is best known for her performance as Mammy, the sassy foil to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Though the role called for yet another wide-grinned, subservient black domestic, McDaniel transformed her character into one who was loyal yet subversive, devoted yet bossy. Her powerful performance would win her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and catapult the hopes of Black Hollywood that the entertainment industry—after decades of stereotypical characters—was finally ready to write more multidimensional, fully realized roles for blacks.
But racism was so entrenched in Hollywood that despite pleas by organizations such as the NAACP and SAG—and the very examples that Black service men were setting as they fought against Hitler in WWII—roles for blacks continued to denigrate the African American experience. So rather than see her stature increase in Hollywood, as did other Oscar-winning actresses, Hattie McDaniel continued to play servants. And rather than see her popularity increase, her audience turned against her as an increasingly politicized black community criticized her and her peers for accepting degrading roles. "I'd rather play a maid then be a maid," Hattie McDaniel answered her critics but her flip response belied a woman who was herself emotionally conflicted about the roles she accepted but who tried to imbue each Mammy character with dignity and nuance.
praise for hattie mcdaniel
“Fascinating…A compelling, disturbing history of blacks in early Hollywood.”—Publishers Weekly
MAE WEST
AN ICON IN BLACK AND WHITE
Oxford University Press - April 17, 2003
"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend?
Sifting through previously untapped sources, author Jill Watts unravels the enigmatic life of Mae West, tracing her early years spent in the Brooklyn subculture of boxers and underworld figures, and follows her journey through burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway and, finally, Hollywood, where she quickly became one of the big screen's most popular—and colorful—stars. Exploring West's penchant for contradiction and her carefully perpetuated paradoxes, Watts convincingly argues that Mae West borrowed heavily from African American culture, music, dance and humor, creating a subversive voice for herself by which she artfully challenged society and its assumptions regarding race, class and gender. Viewing West as a trickster, Watts demonstrates that by appropriating for her character the black tradition of double-speak and "signifying," West also may have hinted at her own African-American ancestry and the phenomenon of a black woman passing for white.
This absolutely fascinating study is the first comprehensive, interpretive account of Mae West's life and work. It reveals a beloved icon as a radically subversive artist consciously creating her own complex image.
praise for mae west
“A provocative biography.”—Edward Rothstein, The New York Times
"An incisive and vivid portrait that focuses on the enormous influence African American music and culture had on West...Watts' spirited and intelligent analysis chronicles West's battles with censorship, celebrates her compassionate artistic vision and discipline, and unveils the enigmas and dualisms that pervade the forever iconic West's work and life.”—Booklist
"Watts is shrewd in her discussions of much of West's writing, and she performs a service drawing attention to West's debt to African-American culture.”—Robert Gottlieb, The New York Observer
"This book is engagingly written. Watts's research is prodigious and she writes with acuity and verve.”—The Times of London
"Watts' biography of Mae West delves deeply into the meaning of the star's essence. She presents an astonishingly complex portrait."—National Post