A Birthday Tribute to Ms. Lena Horne
Written
by Dan McDonald
It surely is a reflection of America’s
history of racial issues that one thinks of Miss Lena Calhoun Horne as having been a
black singer rather than simply being recognized as an American treasure. Perhaps she is more American than almost any
of us. Her ancestry included
European-Americans, African-Americans, and Native Americans. That makes her about as American as anyone
could ever be. She was likely, or at
least reportedly, a descendant of Senator and Vice-President John Calhoun. She lived a long life, born June 30, 1917 and
she passed away on May 9, 2010. It was a
life that spanned a history of change in the way minority races were treated in
the United States. She, like Jackie
Robinson, Joe Louis, and numerous veterans of American wars during her life
helped pave the way to America’s recognition that no race should be treated as
separate or second class. Brown v. Board of Education
took place after the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson to a major league
baseball contract, and after MGM signed Ms. Lena Horne to a movie
contract. She was not the first black
woman to sign a contract with MGM, but she had the opportunity to be the second
black woman signed to a major studio and surely the first to not be forgotten
by most Americans. Nina Mae McKinney signed
a contract with MGM in 1929, but she never became a star that was remembered by
a generation. Lena Horne became known
for her beauty, grace, and talent. It
took that sort of life image to pave the way for a society that hopefully is
closer to being a society of equals than we were in the past. Lena Horne saw the racial divide, stood up to
it when she could, and as a singer and performer helped win Americans over to
realizing that no race of Americans should be treated as second class citizens.
There is reason to believe that the
racial situation in America has improved since Lena Horne was born. Her movie career suffered even as she became
something of a household name in America after her contract with MGM. MGM would only give her roles that were not
significantly involved in the plot of the movies. The reason was that several Southern states had
segregation laws so strict that no black actor or actress could be seen in a
movie for white movie-goers. So MGM cast
Lena Horne in filler spots that could be edited out of the movies when shown in
those southern states. I think few of us
who are European-Americans quite understand what it has meant to be from a
minority group and especially to be black American in the United States. Even if a good amount of progress has been
made in the last sixty or seventy years, one can understand with such a history
shaping generations of African-Americans how even if progress has been made,
scars exist which will be around for at least another generation or two.
Lena Horne attributed a good deal of
her success in singing to composer Duke Ellington’s longtime associate Billy
Strayhorn for his role in helping develop her singing talent. She described Strayhorn’s influence to
Strayhorn’s biographer, David Hadju: “I
wasn’t born a singer. I had to learn a
lot. Billy rehearsed me. He stretched me vocally.” Strayhorn occasionally worked as her
accompanist and she said; “He taught me the basics of music, because I didn’t
know anything.” She remarked of
Strayhorn that he was the only man she ever really loved but he wasn’t
interested in her sexually as he was openly gay. I write this as one who believes in a
traditional Christian understanding that homosexuality is an improper use of
sexuality. Nonetheless, most traditional Christians I know will confess if honest that there is something in virtually every one of us regarding our sexuality, behavior, and attitude that needs continued redemption. It will likely become more
and more the case that most of us will have openly gay friends as the lifestyle
becomes accepted by more and more Americans.
It will surely be an issue for years to come, but it will likely be the
case in the foreseeable future that especially traditional Christians will need
to make clearer than ever before our distinction between how we regard the sin
and the sinner. If we believe it is a sin we must be honest in saying that. Nevertheless, we have no reason in the Gospel to be mean spirited or more unforgiving towards this sin than any other sin. This is something we traditionalists will have to consider and pray
about as we meet people living this lifestyle in the present and future. We should recognize that we are to present the love of Christ to every person and the rest is between God and the person to whom we are called to show love in Christ. We may even find it is quite refreshing not to have to determine anything but to know God's love in Christ and to live in that love towards others.
Lena Horne probably did not at first
choose to be a spokeswoman for black causes, but from the beginning of her
movie career she accepted the responsibility of seeing her role in America’s
movie industry as important for the race she was part of that was treated so
often as second class. She made it known
to MGM that she would not play the role of a maid or a servant as she wanted to
see her role represent something more than a servant or maid. While playing the role of a maid or servant
is something that can be done with great dignity, Ms. Horne realized that in
1942 most of Americans needed to see blacks as something other than simply
servants. She played the role that had
brought her to Hollywood, the role of a singer and performer. Her father had played a role in shaping Lena
Horne’s decision to make it clear that she would not accept a servant’s
role. Her father had said, “I can get a
maid for my daughter, she doesn’t need to play a maid in movies.”
Her contract with MGM began in
1942. The United States was at war with
Germany, Italy, and Japan. Both white
and black Americans were serving in the war, but their units were
segregated. Ms. Horne served the war
effort by singing and dancing for Black troops.
She discovered that USO performers performed before segregated
audiences. Whites and black soldiers
were not allowed to go to the same USO performances. She protested the arrangement. For those who think segregation was not all
that bad, there were incidents in her performing at USO events that brought out
how badly blacks were treated through segregation. She performed at times in audiences that
included blacks and German prisoners of war.
In those instances the German prisoners were given front row seats while
the black American soldiers were forced to sit in back rows. Ms. Horne came down from the stage to sing in
those instances and walked to the front row of the American black soldiers and
sang from there rather than the stage.
In the 1950’s Lena Horne’s movie
career went on hiatus as she was listed as being influenced by the Communists. She was certainly to the left on the political
spectrum, but left wing politics had an immense appeal to people who had not
yet been treated as equals to white America.
She worked with Paul Robeson on some Civil Rights works, so there is little
reason not to suspect her of being leftist, but also no good reason for
believing that she was a threat to the nation.
Robeson, a former All-American football player at Rutgers and class
valedictorian at Rutgers held openly to Communist beliefs. But it was not uncommon for Communists and
non-Communists to work together in the Civil Rights movement. There was common cause for equality whether one
believed that equality meant redistribution of wealth or merely equality under
the law. Both issues needed addressed in
1950 and there was a lot of room for common cause in such instances.
With her Hollywood career mostly
ended, Horne returned to nightclubs, Broadway, and also many television
appearances as she continued to perform almost her entire life. In the 1960’s she was active in the Civil
Rights movement. She went in support of
Civil Rights in the march on Washington, and she appeared with Medgar Evers the
weekend before his assassination. There
had been a time when she worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to strengthen the laws
against lynching. During her life from
1917 to 2010 she went from having her film appearances edited out of states
with segregation laws to seeing a black president elected.
I think one of the most eloquent
summaries of Lena Horne’s life was made by Lena Horne as an eighty year old
woman looking back on her life and how she had reached a place where she had a
solid self-identity as she turned 80. She
said: “My identity is very clear to me
now. I am a black woman. I’m free.
I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’
I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t
have to be a first to anybody. I don’t
have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d
become. I’m me and I’m like nobody else.” Somehow that seems to me like it should be
the way we expect people to see themselves.
Until that is the reality for how we look at all persons, then I think
to that degree we have remaining problems regarding race and other issues that
so easily divide us.
It is hard to select a signature
song for Lena Horne, but if there is one it would be the one she sang in a 1943
movie, “Stormy Weather.” You can view her
performance on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCG3kJtQBKo
I would encourage anyone interested
in considering the life of Lena Horne more than I have written to watch the
following two brief You Tube videos covering Lena Horne’s life. They will include clips from her singing and
performing career. Both are less than
ten minutes long, a 2 part look at her life.
I count her as a true American treasure.
I
would like to credit the two following sources for the information contained in
this article:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Horne
Addition to original article presented August 25, 2013I have realized since writing this article that some of my view of relief that we have made progress in this part of American culture, is a white person's fantasy that with a few pieces of legislation we swept the problem away. I knew better than that when I wrote the article, but my desire to be positive led me to address the issue as if it were virtually solved in the past generation. I present this video to show something of the remaining work needing done.
http://www.upworthy.com/one-easy-thing-all-white-people-could-do-that-would-make-the-world-a-better-place-5?g=3
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