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1930s actress gave up Hollywood at the peak of her career because she refused to 'pass' as white

The character that made her famous was ashamed of her heritage, but Fredi Washington was not.

Imitation of Life|Wikimedia

1930s actress refused to 'pass' as white, so she quit Hollywood instead.

A lot has changed since the early to mid 1900s. We no longer see "whites only" signs tauntingly hanging above water fountains or outside of pools or restaurants. The only place you'll find a sign that says "No Blacks. No Mexicans. No dogs" now is inside of a civil rights museum, but this wasn't always the case.

Living in the 21st century it can be easy to forget that in our not too distant past, segregation, racism and discrimination was the norm. Discrimination was written into laws and it took brave people to stand up against a system that held them as second class citizens. It wasn't just the civil rights leaders we learn about in school that made a stand, it took people from all industries and walks of life to speak up even if it meant they may lose the little privileges they had.

Fredrika "Fredi" Carolyn Washington was one of those people that used her voice during a time when it would've been easier to stay quiet. Washington was an actress and dancer in the 1930s who catapulted to fame with her portrayal of Peola Johnson, the daughter of a Black housekeeper who decided to pass for white to obtain access to better opportunities and social standing in a segregated America in the 1934 film Imitation of Life.

Just like her character, Washington was so fair-skinned that she looked white to those who didn't know her, though that's where the similarities to her character ended. Though she had blue-grey eyes and light brown hair with a loose curl, she had no personal interest in pretending to be white even if doing so would greatly benefit her career and her life.

Washington explained to the Chicago Defender in 1935 at the height of her fame, “I have never tried to pass for white and never had any desire, I am proud of my race.” In Imitation of Life, I was showing how a girl might feel under the circumstances but I am not showing how I felt.”

After her success playing Peola, Washington faced a dilemma. In order for her career to keep thriving after her breakout hit, she was advised to pass as white to get more roles. At the time, Black women were type cast in servant roles like maids, cooks, or caregivers, but Washington was too fair-skinned to believably play those parts. If she wanted lead roles, she would need to pass as white since only white women were allowed to play lead romantic interests.

"Early in my career it was suggested that I might get further by passing as French or something exotic. But there was no way I could do that, feeling the way I do. I felt you do not have to be white to be good. I've spent most of my life trying to prove that to people who thought otherwise," Washington said in 1945.

Washington later starred in the 1937 film One Mile from Heaven, which was her first role since her success as Peola three years earlier. The actress had to use makeup to darken her skin for the role and, afterwards, she decided to walk away from Hollywood for good. Instead, Washington focused on African-American Civil Rights, even co-founding the Negro Actors Guild of America (NAG).

Washington expressed no regrets about her refusal to pass, saying, "But to pass, for economic or other advantages, would have meant that I swallowed, whole hog, the idea of Black inferiority. I did not think up this system, and I was not responsible for how I looked. I'm a Black woman and proud of it and I will fight injustices and encourage others to fight them until the day I die or until there is nothing to fight against."

While quite a few Black people with fairer complexions and racially ambiguous features chose to pass as white during segregation (and beyond), Washington wasn't alone in her refusal. Passing as white often meant completely alienating yourself from your family and friends, participating in the very treatment you were trying to avoid having inflicted on yourself, and living in fear of being found out. In fact, many Black authors of the Harlem Renaissance penned novels and essays about passing and its consequences, the most prominent of which being Passing by Nella Larsen (1929).

Washington rejected any idea of passing to make her life easier. Instead, she focused her efforts on bettering the lives of Black Americans through her co-founding of the NAG, her work with the NAACP, and lobbying for federal protections for Black people. She lived to be 90 years old.

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'13th' wasn't around to watch in your history class. 13 reasons to watch it now.

If you see only one Oscar-nominated film this year, make it "13th."

Directed by Ava DuVernay, the stirring documentary explores America's long history of overpolicing and imprisoning black and brown people since the passing of the 13th Amendment. DuVernay sat down with scholars, educators, elected leaders, authors, and activists to tell this troubling but necessary story.

DuVernay (left) interviews scholar and activist Angela Davis for "13th." Image via Netflix.

While these issues are difficult, we need to talk about them and, better yet, do something about them. "13th" truly couldn't have come at a better time.

Here are 13 lessons everyone should learn from this from powerful must-see film.

1. The 13th Amendment had so much promise ... almost.

Section 1 of the 13th Amendment reads:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

The clause, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,"was included so farmers and landowners could essentially continue a form of slavery to support their businesses — so long as the black men and women were deemed criminals. There's no such thing as a throwaway clause in the Constitution. This is an intentional legal loophole.

A political cartoon from 1865 featuring President Lincoln and an amended U.S. constitution. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

2. The legal loophole in the 13th Amendment led to mass arrests and incarceration during the late 19th century.

It was the United States' first prison boom.

Black people were arrested en masse for petty crimes, like loitering or vagrancy, and incarcerated. Once labeled criminals, landowners and farmers could "lease" convicts from the state in exchange for full control of their lives.

These convicts were leased to harvest timber. Photo circa 1915, via World Digital Library/State Library and Archives of Florida.

3. While black men filled prisons, popular culture stoked fears.

Black men were portrayed in films as menacing, evil, and in relentless pursuit of white women.

In the 1915 film, "Birth of a Nation," which is essentially three hours of racist propaganda masking as a historical film, a white woman throws herself off a rocky cliff to save herself from being assaulted by a black man. Critics raved, drowning out mounting protests.

As a result of the popular film, membership in the Ku Klux Klan boomed.

Still image from "Birth of a Nation," (1915). Image via "Birth of a Nation"/Wikimedia Commons.

4. As the KKK grew, black people were terrorized and murdered.

Lynchings were used to reinforce white supremacy while traumatizing and terrorizing black people. There was a disgusting entertainment aspect to it, as mobs of white people — including elected officials and community leaders — gathered to watch victims get beaten, shot, and tortured. Picture postcards were made of the swinging, mutilated bodies.

More than 4,000 lynchings occurred between 1877 and 1950 across Texas and the American South.

A large crowd watches the lynching of 18-year-old Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas. Photo via Library of Congress.

5. The murder of Emmett Till kickstarted the Civil Rights movement.

14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally beaten and murdered by a group of white men for allegedly whistling at and flirting with a white woman in 1955. (The woman recently admitted she fabricated at least part of her testimony.) Photos from his open casket funeral and the face of Till's weeping mother sent shockwaves around the country, galvanizing black people and their allies in the fight for equality.

6. But then the War on Drugs started an unrelenting wave of mass incarceration.

Crime started to increase in the early 1960s, and many in power quickly blamed the uptick on the end of segregation. Before long, the word "crime" was a stand-in for the word "race."

Nixon appealed to southern Democrats with thinly-veiled racism and promises to clean up the streets. His rhetorical "War on Drugs" became very real in the 1980s under President Reagan, who threw money, resources, and the full weight of the executive branch behind the issue. A wide swath of an entire generation was essentially removed from the narrative.

President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy wave to supporters in November 1984. Photo by Don Rypka/AFP/Getty Images.

7. The numbers are astonishing. Full stop.

In 1970, there were 196,429 sentenced prisoners in state and federal prisons. In 1980, there were 329,821 people in state and federal prisons, and by 1990, that number more than doubled to 771,243.

Today, the American criminal justice system holds 2.3 million people. This is not normal. It is not OK.

8. Republicans are not solely to blame for this crisis. President Clinton did his part too.

In the wake of President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, appearing "soft on crime" wasn't an option for President Bill Clinton. In 1994, he signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. It expanded the list of death penalty eligible offenses and included a "three strikes" provision, which meant mandatory life sentences for people convicted of their third felony. It also funded new prisons and provided the budget for 100,000 police officers.

President Bill Clinton. Photo by Paul Richards/AFP/Getty Images.

9. Sadly, there's a lot of money to be made off mass incarceration.

Private correctional facilities made a reported $629 million in profits in 2014, and that's just scratching the surface. From the corporations building and maintaining prison facilities, to the food vendors, health care providers, and equipment and textile manufacturers who keep them running, many companies have a lot to gain from maintaining the status quo.

An inmate stands with handcuffs in San Quentin State Prison. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

10. As mass incarceration starts to get a bad rap, the winds are shifting — and not necessarily for the better.

As mass incarceration and America's prison problem take center stage, legislators and businesses are looking for new ways to redefine the narrative while still making money. What does that look like? For starters, monetizing bail, probation, parole, and house arrest.

Photo by iStock.

11. We can't forget the people and families caught in the struggle.

In 2010, 16-year-old Kalief Browder was arrested for a robbery he insisted he did not commit. Browder was thrown into an adult correctional facility where he would spend nearly three years awaiting trial and almost two years in solitary confinement. In 2013, the district attorney dismissed the case against Browder, and he went home a free — but forever changed — young man.

After many attempts, Browder died by suicide in May 2015.

Browder's story is far too common. Many poor people, especially poor people of color, are locked up for years either awaiting trial or because they cannot afford bail.

ABC News' Juju Chang, Venida Browder, mother of Kalief Browder, and civil rights attorney Paul V. Prestia discuss Kalief Browder's life and death. Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images.

12. American prisons are intended to punish, but former felons continue to suffer after they have served their time.

Former felons are stripped of voting rights, have difficulty securing employment, applying for aid, and finding housing.

"Ban the box" campaigns that seek to end asking about felony convictions on job and aid applications are popping up across the country, and for many, these initiatives can't come soon enough.

Outreach materials at a press conference for a Ban the Box Petition Delivery to The White House in 2015. Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for ColorOfChange.org.

13. As President Trump settles into office, many are worried about his next moves — and rightfully so.

He repeatedly refers to parts of Chicago as lawless, dangerous, and worse than parts of the war-torn Middle East. He's threatened the city with federal intervention to get the "carnage" under control. His repeated calls to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants tend to include gross mischaracterizations of immigrants as gang members, rapists, or drug dealers.

His "law and order" catchphrase is the same dog whistle Nixon used to kickstart the War on Drugs. His comments about Chicago and other inner cities are stoking fears and playing to the imaginations of his base, much like the horrifying scenes in "Birth of a Nation."

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

These facts are alarming, but here's what you can do about it.

Use your privilege for good. Pass the mic to voices that may go unheard. Help others register to vote. Support Ban the Box initiatives and organizations that help people with criminal records land on their feet.

Ask to see the numbers. Plenty of police data is publicly available. Check out the numbers in your community. Look at the demographics of people being stopped, arrested, or convicted. Numbers don't lie. Hold your leaders accountable and make them answer for racial disparities.

Stay active in schools. Overpolicing and the criminalization of black people doesn't begin and end with police officers. Black children are nearly four times as likely to be suspended as white children. Ask tough questions of your child's teachers and administrators. Attend school board meetings.

Photo by iStock.

This is no ordinary crisis and it will require extraordinary solutions.

Watch the film, do your part. Let's get to work.

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No one documented black life like Harold Baquet. See 9 of his extraordinary photos.

New Orleans is a city rich in tradition, history, and heart. And few knew that better than Harold Baquet.

Harold Baquet was a black photographer and seventh generation New Orleanian who spent much of his career documenting the ordinary lives of the city's African-American communities. Before his death in 2015, Baquet captured the character and resilience of black New Orleanians by photographing everyone from children and families to blue-collar workers and city officials.

He's best known for his work capturing life in the Desire neighborhood, a largely African-American area in the city's upper 9th Ward.

1. At the time of its construction, Desire was one of the largest housing projects in the country.

"Desire Fence," from the "Eyes of Desire" series, between 1985 and 1990. All photographs courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection, Harold F. Baquet and Cheron Brylski.

2. It was big, bland, and essentially built to fail.

Built on a landfill-turned-swamp between 1949 and 1956,  Desire was segregated on all sides by canals and railroad tracks. The isolated area was home to 262 buildings and just over 1,800 apartments built with brick veneer and wood to keep costs down.

"Trampoline, Desire Housing Project."

3. By the 1960s, there were close to 13,000 people living on approximately 100 acres.

It housed so many people that two elementary schools were included in the construction of the housing project.

"After School."

4. But decades of unlivable conditions and broken promises led Desire and its residents to an unsurprising fate.

First came wear and tear on the shoddy buildings, followed by Hurricane Betsy and decades of empty promises from the federal government to improve conditions.

As buildings fell apart, crime increased and residents left. Desire was torn down in waves, beginning in 1996 and ending in 2001.

"Eyes of Desire."

In addition to documenting life in housing projects, Baquet captured seemingly ordinary slices of black life in New Orleans.

5. There were sweet haircuts at black-owned barbershops.

"Dix's Barber Shop, 342 S. Rampart St."

6. And fresh new wheels, from gentlemen at the tire shop.

"Tire Service."

7. There were plenty of second line parades, offering the chance to play, dance, and celebrate.

"Second Line."

8. But there were sad days too.

"St. Thomas Drainage."

9. Sobering reminders that few things are ever certain.

"Graveside services for Mayor Ernest N. 'Dutch' Morial," December 28, 1989.

Though life has a few inevitabilities: Time marches on. Kids grow tall. Buildings crumble. Families move away.

But thanks to artists like Harold Baquet, these testimonies are well-preserved.

After his untimely passing in 2015, Baquet's widow donated his massive archive of images to The Historic New Orleans Collection. It's the organization's first complete collection by a black photographer.

The gift ensures Baquet's work and the stories of a community will live on for generations to come.

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Rosa Parks and the power of refusing to move.

60 years ago, on Dec. 1, 1965, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white rider on a Montgomery bus and sat her way right into the history books. We all know the story.

Image via Lauren/Picasaweb.

Many of us have taken plenty of feel-good lessons from it about being brave and taking a stand. Most of the lessons focus on the huge impact of her seemingly small action. But there's also an important life lesson to be learned from the action itself.

Rosa Parks sparked a movement by refusing to move.

Sometimes, choosing to sit still is the most impactful action we can take. Sometimes what starts the movement that we so desperately need is actually our refusal to be moved.

It seems so counterintuitive. We've been taught that to change things, we must exert energy, we must fight inertia, and somehow force things to change with our movement — by tearing things down with brute force or, in some cases, running the other direction. So how can stillness actually spark radical change?


Photo via Joel Nilsson/Wikimedia Commons.

I once went to a yoga class where the mantra was "I am like the sun. I am big, I am bright, and I will not be moved."

It was based on the premise that all the other planets revolve around the sun, the center of our galaxy. I loved this idea and said it to myself every time I needed to feel grounded and resolute, confident that despite the chaos whirling around me, I did not have to move. I could stand peacefully and firm, like the immovable sun, in who I was and what I believed.

I held on to that mantra for quite awhile — until I discovered that the sun actually does move. It's just considerably harder to recognize and see the movement because of its relation to all the planets spinning around it. In other words, even when the sun looks like it isn't moving, it is.

Ready to get deep? Go with me here.

Rosa Parks was the sun that day.

In her refusal to move seats, she appeared to be still even though a huge, important shift really was taking place. As a result, she forced others to move around her. White bus patrons, police, supporters, society, and ultimately, the law.

Photo via piper60/Pixabay.

It's clear to see how that lesson relates to activism and social change. Time and time again, from sit-ins at lunch counters and college campuses, to die-ins on the floor of city hall, we've seen how the act of being seemingly still and not moving from the scene of injustice can disrupt and ultimately transform unjust systems.

But what if we also applied that principle to our own lives?

So often we believe that in order to make dramatic change, in order to be treated how we deserve to be treated, we have to be the ones to metaphorically move; to change something about ourselves.

We frantically move in the face of difficulty, disrespect, or opposition: We quit the job, we relocate, we lessen our demands, we adjust our appearances, expectations, or approach, we "fall back" to avoid the confrontation.

But if we're honest, oftentimes our actions are the same thing as moving to the back of the bus. We believe that if we are quiet, if we are accommodating, if we do what is asked of us, if we remove ourselves from the situation entirely, we will either win the respect of those who stand in our way or at the very least, we will make our lives easier.

Ultimately, we do this because we are afraid of the consequences of being ourselves, standing in our truth, and taking up the space that we deserve.

But what if we finally recognized that the cost of moving is actually greater to our identity and our souls than the cost of refusing to move — no matter how scary the immediate consequences may be?

What if the critical behavior change that will win us our freedom is finally breaking the pattern of adjusting, accommodating, and moving in the face of opposition?

What if we behaved like the sun? What if by "not moving" we were actually shifting not only our own perspective but everything around us?

Sounds good, right? But lessons like this are often easier said than done.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

How do you know when refusing to move is the right action to take?

Well, here are some tips, straight from Rosa's playbook:

Refuse to move ... when you have a plan. Despite the children's storybook version of events ("Rosa Parks spontaneously decided that she was too tired to move out of her seat!"), we now know that her action that day was about as strategic as it gets. She was not the first to refuse her seat, but it had been decided that this was the moment for someone to try again — and that she was the right person to do it. The NAACP knew that Rosa's arrest would be the example that best allowed for a successful court case.

You should always think about the impact that standing firm and refusing to move could make and plan for how you will deal with the consequences, regardless of which way it turns out.

Refuse to move ... when you've done everything else and you're tired. There's a myth that Rosa Parks was tired after having worked a long day and that her physical fatigue is why she refused to stand. The truth is that she was indeed tired, but not the way most people think. From her 1992 autobiography "Rosa Parks, My Story":

"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Parks' response to the system of segregation did not begin on the bus that day. She had marched and protested many times before, but on that day, she knew that only a pure act of defiance would spur the change that needed to take place. The same could be true for you. If you have adjusted and changed and run and objected enough times, refusing to move might just be the ultimate act, not only of defiance, but of freedom.

Refuse to move ... when it is morally right. Sitting in her seat wasn't just a randomly selected act of protest. It was, above all, right. Rosa had principle on her side. And there is no better reason to refuse to move than when principles, values, and morals support your presence and your position.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Rosa Parks' action will, of course, be remembered forever as one of courage and will, an act that sparked a turning point in the American civil rights movement.

But it should also be an action that we turn to repeatedly as a reminder of the power of not giving in, of being still.

She showed us that great things can happen when we stay on the bus and refuse to be moved. You, me, and the sun, we rise each morning with the same possibility and power. And we, too, can change the world.

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