Hazel Scott Was One Of The Biggest Stars Until She Fought Racism
Welcome back to the next chapter of BOSSIP's Black History Hidden Gems, our weekly Black History Month series dedicated to uncovering neglected black figures, moments and milestones. This series spotlights stories that history almost erased, but legacy refused to forget.
Recognizing black achievements during Black History Month is not just about honoring triumph, but about reclaiming narratives of resilience, intellect and humanity that, in some cases, have been deliberately buried. Visionary virtuoso Hazel Scott's talent blazed trails across Broadway, film, and her own landmark TV show before Oprah was even born. However, her name is not remembered with peers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. Scott's epic career was cut short for confronting Hollywood and the US government over segregated crowds, racist images of black people, and political persecution a decade before the Civil Rights Movement.
A Piano Prodigy becomes a star
Born in Trinidad on June 11, 1920 to West African scholar R. Thomas Scott and classically trained pianist Alma Long Scott, it seems that Hazel Scott's meteoric rise to the top of entertainment and liberation movements was destiny. By the age of three, she became a local legend for playing the piano by ear.
According to The PBS American MastersScotts moved to Harlem, New York, in 1924 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Scott's mother took her to audition at Juilliard at eight, half the prestigious school's minimum age. She improvised Rachmaninoff to compensate for hands too small to reach all the keys, and convinced Walter Damrosch to give her a special admission and scholarship. At 13, Scott followed in her mother's musical footsteps to play in Alma Long Scott's All-Girl Jazz Band.
By 16, Scott hosted her own radio show on WOR, where she belted out complex classical piano performances. She shared the stage with the Count Basie Orchestra and made her 1938 Broadway debut in “Sing Out the News.” During her performance at Manhattan's Yacht Club, the 18-year-old perfects a signature style for “Swing the Classics” with the speed and syncopation of jazz.
Hazel Scott finds her big break and musical home in the Café Society
At the innovative Café Society, the first desegregated nightclub in the US, Billie Holiday gave Scott her big break to replace the “Strange Fruit” singer as headliner. Her star continued to rise in one of the hottest and most progressive places in the country. Scott's first album, “Swinging the Classics,” became a critically acclaimed and record-breaking success in 1940.
This fame and fortune was leveraged to fight for equality as she continued to climb. With fans like Paul Robeson, Sinatra, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, and Eleanor Roosevelt, Scott had the power to demand in her contracts that she never perform for segregated crowds. Scott famously canceled an Austin, Texas show when she saw the place was not integrated. “Why would anyone come to hear me, a Negro, and refuse to sit next to someone like me?” she asked Time magazine.
Breaking down barriers in Hollywood
Scott didn't change when Hollywood came calling. Despite being a newcomer, Scott turned down four movie roles as a singing girl. While the industry reduced Black actors to servants, villains and prostitutes, the triple threat's contract stipulated that she would only play herself. While Hattie McDaniel couldn't find a reprieve from segregation long enough to collect her historic Academy Award, Scott demanded final approval of her song selection and provided her own elegant wardrobe.
Scott became the first Afro-Caribbean woman in major Hollywood roles such as I Killed It (1943), Broadway Rhythm (1944), op Rhapsody In Blue (1945). Success on the big screen did not last long after filming The heat is on (1943). Scott and Lena Horne were the only Black stars on an all-white cast, where rampant racism forced the outspoken lawyer to take a stand.
Scott stopped production for three days on a show where black women dressed in dirty aprons sent their husbands off to war. She called it unrealistic and demanded a wardrobe true to the pride of her people. She won the battle, but a studio executive vowed that the prolific pianist would never book another film again.
Hazel Scott makes history with her own TV show and makes an enemy of the US government
After marrying in 1945 progressive pastor who was New York councilor Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Scott stopped performing at nightclubs and Café Society. The powerful couple welcomed a son, Adam Clayton Powell III. She went on a 35-week national tour, still demanding cancellations for all bookings at segregated clubs, including the Jim Crow South. According to PBSMartin Luther King Jr. later told Scott that her performance was “the first time I sat in a non-segregated audience in the South was at one of your concerts.”
In 1950, Scott became the first Black TV host with the “Hazel Scott Show” on the Dumont Television network. No recordings of her show survived, but it was so popular that it expanded to a national broadcast three times a week.
That same year, McCarthyism forced Scott to choose between fighting for freedom and newfound success when the “Red Channels” labeled her a communist. She was one of the few entertainers who insisted on testifying before the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) to clear her name.
They denied what they believed were misconceptions based on their association with the Café Society. However, the most devastatingly “Un-American” thing Scott did was defy racism at every turn, including a landmark 1949 discrimination lawsuit when a restaurant in Pasco, Washington refused to serve her. Scott condemned the list of suspected sympathizers, HUAC, and any platform that has admitted to participating in the blacklisting.
“The actors, musicians, artists, composers, and all men and women of the arts are eager and anxious to help, to serve. Our country needs us today more than ever before. We must not be written off by the cruel slander of small and petty men,” she said courageously in a 14-page statement.
As soon as the blacklisting ends the American career of Hazel Scott, she starts again in Paris
One week later, the network canceled her hit show when sponsors pulled out. Scott went to Europe because blacklisting ruined her American career, and befriended Black ex-pats like James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and Dizzy Gillespie. When Scott's marriage declined, her career rebounded with a European concert tour. In 1955 she recorded one of the most important jazz albums of the 20th century, Relaxed Piano Moodswith Max Roach and Charlie Mingus.
In 1963, she and James Baldwin organized a demonstration of African Americans at the American embassy in Paris to support the March on Washington. Scott soon returned to the States, only to find that Motown and Rock had replaced Jazz and Blues.
Scott focused on her son's growing family and continued to play clubs and concerts. She quickly recorded three albums in 1979: “Always,” “After Thoughts,” and “After Hours.”
In 1981, Hazel Scott died of pancreatic cancer. In addition to a loving family, she left behind an incomparable legacy of genius, innovation, advocacy and courage in the face of overwhelming oppression and injustice. Tragically, too few remember Scott's name and contributions. Alicia Keys put herself back in the spotlight at the 61st Grammy Awards with a tribute of playing two pianos at once, as Scott famously did with mesmerizing elegance and ease.
