HATTIE MCDANIEL became the first African-American to win an Academy Award when she scored Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Gone with the Wind.”

However, an achievement that should have been celebrated ended up placing McDaniel in the middle of many controversies, starting with the white racists who didn’t think she should be billed with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, so they boycotted theaters until her name was removed from the marquee, to the civil rights leaders who were disappointed in McDaniel for agreeing to play the role of the Black Mammy, a stereotype African-Americans wished to dispel.

Rita Dove’s poem “Hattie McDaniel Arrives at Coconut Grove” is about this actress and her walk to the famous Los Angeles restaurant/nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove (spelled “Coconut” in the poem), where the Academy Awards took place in 1940, the year McDaniel won.

“HATTIE MCDANIEL ARRIVES AT COCONUT GROVE”
by Rita Dove

late, in aqua and ermine, gardenias
scaling her left sleeve in a spasm of scent,
her gloves white, her smile chastened, purse giddy
with stars and rhinestones clipped to her brilliantined hair
on her free arm that fine Negro,
Mr. Wonderful Smith.

It’s the day that isn’t, February 29th,
at the end of the shortest month of the year-
and the sh*****st, too, everywhere
except Hollywood, California,
where the maid can wear mink and still be a maid,
bobbing her bandaged head and cursing
the white folks under her breath as she smiles
and shoos their silly daughters
in from the night dew … what can she be
thinking of, striding into the ballroom
where no black face has ever showed itself
except above a serving tray?

Hi-Hat-Hattie, Mama Mac, Her Haughtiness,
The “little lady” from Showboat whose name
Bing forgot, Beulah & Bertha & Malena
& Carrie & Violet & Cynthia & Fidelia,
one half of the Dark Barrymores —
dear Mammy we can’t help but hug you crawl into
your generous lap tease you
with arch innuendo so we can feel that
much more wicked and youthful
and sleek but oh what

we forgot: the four husbands, the phantom
pregnancy, your famous parties, your celebrated
ice box cake. Your giggle above the red petticoat’s rustle
black girl and white girl walking hand in hand
down the railroad tracks
in Kansas City, six years old.
The man advised you, now
that you were famous, to “begin eliminating”
your more “common” acquaintances
and your reply (catching him square
in the eye): “That’s a good idea.
I’ll start right now by eliminating you.”

Is she or isn’t she? Three million dishes,
a truckload of aprons and headrags later, and here
you are: poised, between husbands
and factions, no corset wide enough
to hold you in, your huge face a dark moon split
by that spontaneous smile — your trademark,
your curse. No matter, Hattie: It’s a long beautiful walk
into that flower-smothered standing ovation,
so go on
and make them wait.

Listen to Rita Dove read “Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove” here.

Find more of Rita Dove’s poetry here.