Hazel Scott(photo below) was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on June 11, 1920. In 1924, her family moved to the United States and settled in Harlem, New York City.

She fought segregation in NYC!! NYC? In the North?

Along with Lena Horne, Scott was one of the first black women to gain respectable roles in major Hollywood pictures. She refused to take roles in Hollywood playing a "singing maid", and she turned down the first four roles she was offered for this reason. She was the first person of African descent to have her own television show in the U.S., The Hazel Scott Show, which premiered on the DuMont Television Network on July 3, 1950.

Scott had long been committed to civil rights. She refused to perform in segregated venues when she was on tour. She was once escorted from the city of Austin, Texas by Texas Rangers because she refused to perform when she discovered that black and white patrons were seated separately. "Why would anyone come to hear me, a Negro," she told Time magazine, "and refuse to sit beside someone just like me? In fact shortly after she was blacklisted because of her activism, she moved to Paris in 1957 for 10 yrs to evade political fallout in the United States, She came back to NYC until 1967. She was also accused of being a communist. However, she stated that she had supported communist party member Benjamin J. Davis Jr.'s campaign for the NYC Council.

Didn't know she married US Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. Their relationship provoked controversy, as Powell was married when their affair began. Anyway, her life and the hell she went thru is pretty interesting to know. On October 2, 1981, Hazel Scott died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital, Manhattan at age 61. (RIP)