Legendary singer and actress Lena Horne, who became the first African-American to sign a long-term contract with a major movie studio, died in New York Sunday, May 9, The New York Times reported. She was best-known for her performance of the song "Stormy Weather" from the 1943 movie musical of the same name. 

And Lena Makes Three: Civil Rights Activist broke down racial barriers in entertainment

By Karen H. Samuels/
National Deputy Editor/Tell Us USA News Network

In less than a month’s time, the country has said farewell to three prominent African Americans whose diverse paths in life intersected at the cross roads of civil rights.

Benjamin Hooks, Dorothy Height and now Lena Horne; each left indelible marks in their own fields while simultaneously standing up to discrimination and breaking down racial barriers. Entertainment, education and the church were career paths most often pursued by blacks during the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s largely because they presented the fewest obstacles to success.

It was the entertainment industry that paved the way for the legendary singer and actress, Lena Horne. Even as she became the toast of the famed Harlem Cotton Club and the first black woman signed by a major Hollywood studio, Lena Horne refused to comprise and fought against industry racism throughout her career. She recognized that her accomplishments were within racial boundaries; while acting on film with white entertainers, producers would edit out Horne’s performances to run in the segregated South.

It was the prevalence of institutional racism in mid century America which led Horne to become a civil rights activist who courageously lodged protests against the customary practices of racial discrimination.


"I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become," Horne once said. "I'm me, and I'm like nobody else."

“While entertaining troops at Fort Reilly, Kansas during World War II, Horne filed a complaint with the NAACP because African American soldiers in the audience had to sit in back seats behind German POWs. Horne financed her own travel to entertain black troops when MGM Studios pulled her off its tour.

In the late 1940s, Horne sued a number of restaurants and theaters for race discrimination and also became politically allied with Paul Robeson in the liberal organization Progressive Citizens of America. She joined Eleanor Roosevelt's unsuccessful campaign for anti-lynching legislation and worked on behalf of Japanese Americans who faced discrimination. During the anti-communist hearings in the U.S. Congress in the 1950s, Horne was among hundreds of entertainers blacklisted because of political views and social activism.”


Lena Horne addresses a crowd gathered to welcome her back to her birthplace in Brooklyn, NY in August of 1947.  (Getty file photo)

By the 1960’s Lena Horne would travel to the South to participate in civil rights activities; she was at the 1963 March on Washington alongside Harry Belafonte and Dick Gregory. Black cultural leaders in the arts joined as a group, to meet with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, lobbying him to take a more active approach to desegregation – Lena Horne was there.

Biographer James Gavin, author of, Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne says singing before a sea of white faces, enduring racial jeers and feeling the cold draft of disapproval propelled Horne to fight back. In the end Lena Horne changed history as she broke down barriers. And all while leaving us a treasure trove of memories from a sixty year career on stage, television and in film.