On this day, February 29, in 1940

African American actress Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer in the U.S. to win an Academy Award. The movie "Gone With the Wind", which McDaniel's won the Oscar for, premiered in Atlanta, Georgia a few months earlier in an event that barred all the black actors from attending. McDaniel's usually played the roles of domestic servants or maids and while she did received some criticism from the black community for choosing these roles, they were often the only roles that black actors and actresses were able to get. Aside from acting, McDaniel was also a professional singer-songwriter, comedienne, and radio performer. The history of American film is just another door into the history of racism in this country.