When the Oscar Nominations for films released in 2014 were announced in January, film critics, cinema historians, and moviegoers alike were taken aback by the slate of candidates for two major categories. Notably absent from the Best Actor slate was the name of David Oyelowo, who so ably portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King, JR. in the film Selma. And while Selma itself was nominated for Best Picture, its director, Ava DuVernay, an African American female, was also shunned.
 

These two "oversights" only add to the questionable history of Hollywood's Oscar nominations and victories for African-Americans and other monitories.
 

The first African-American actor or actress to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of Mammy in David O. Selnick's epic, Gone with the Wind, released in that memorable year of film history, 1939. While the Board of Directors of the Academy may have congratulated itself for its recognition of actors of color, two events associated with the event will forever tarnish McDaniel's victory.
 

First, when the film opened in Atlanta, Georgia in December of 1939, city officials did not allow McDaniel to participate in any of the festivities associated with its release. To his credit, Clark Gable (Rhett Butler) stepped forward and announced that he would boycott all of the hoopla planned for the city unless McDaniel was included. Various sources have noted that McDaniel persuaded him to reconsider that decision. Too bad that he didn't remain steadfast and stay away.
 

When the awards ceremony itself took place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California in February of 1940, McDaniel was allowed to attend and accept the honor of being the Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
 

However, she was seated at a table separate from other nominees in the back of the room.
 

After McDaniel's dubious triumph, almost twenty-five years passed before another African-American won an Academy Award. That happened with Sidney Poitier took home the statuette for his performance in Lilies of the Field in 1963.
 

Only once in Oscar history has an African-American woman been selected as Best Actress. Who can forget Halle Berry's acceptance speech when she won her Oscar for Monster's Ball released in November of 2001.
 

Indeed, Hollywood's lack of recognition of actors and actresses of color is underscored by this sad note. Today the whereabouts of Hattie McDaniel's Oscar award remains unknown. When McDaniel died of cancer in 1952, she bequeathed the plaque to Howard University in Washington, D.C. Howard University still maintains that it never received the award in the first place, but students in attendance at that time noted its presence in a glass case on campus.
 

One popular theory is that student protesters in the late 1960s seized the award and tossed it into the Potomac River in repudiation of Mammy's subservient role in Gone with the Wind.

                                                    -Written by Carol May-

                       Hattie McDaniel winning Best Supporting Actress: 1940 Oscars