of Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to be awarded an Oscar (for performance in Gone With the Wind), and how she could not attend the award ceremony, because she was black:

“It’s worth mentioning that the movie features a performance by the first ever black woman to win an Oscar, Hattie McDaniel. Watching it, it was easy to see why. She plays a three dimensional character with lots of screen time, and was given latitude to display more complexity and internality than was typically afforded to black women in Hollywood films of that era. At the time she won the award, the Oscars were segregated, and she was shamefully forbidden from attending the premiere. That speaks to the fact that the film, albeit racist, was somewhat ahead of its time.