Kate Smith, who is being wrongfully decried by some as a racist today, is the one who brought Josephine Baker, the singer and civil rights activist to American television when no one else would. Baker had been forced to take her talent to Europe in the 1940’s. It was the great Kate Smith who brought Baker back to America in 1951 and featured her on her TV show, “The Kate Smith Hour.” This was not the work of a racist.
“This was not the work of a racist.”
I don’t know why the same people who want to destroy the memory of Kate Smith are not out to destroy the memory of Paul Robeson who recorded the same song in the same era. Oh, wait, I DO know why, it is because Robeson was a very black, self identified communist so it wasn’t racist when he sang it. Kate Smith could have said black is beautiful and they would be condemning her for that in this age.