LENA HORNE The voice of change

As the Black Lives Matter movement grips America – and the world – Chantal Walsh remembers a pioneering performer whose refusal to play by the rules would change the face of show business.

- Chantal Walsh

It was the early 1940s and Lena Horne was breaking new ground for black performers by signing a long-term contract with major Hollywood studio MGM. However, in the midst of an era where much of America operated under some form of segregation, Lena’s trajectory to Hollywood star wasn’t without its struggles.

Born in 1917 in Brooklyn, New York, Lena was the daughter of professional gambler Edwin and actress Edna. Her parents separated when she was young and she spent her early years living with her grandmother Cora Calhoun Horne, one of the first black suffragettes and an early campaigner for the rights of African-Americans. At 16, Lena’s mother landed her a job in the chorus at Harlem’s Cotton Club, where black performers entertained a strictly white audience. It was not a happy time in Lena’s life, with poor backstage conditions, bad pay and a backdrop of inequality. After joining another band, Lena recalled in a 1981 Time interview, “I literally ran away and married the first man I met.”

That man was a 28-year-old political operative, Louis Jones. Over the next few years, Lena and Louis welcomed a daughter, Gail, and son, Edwin. However, the marriage didn’t last due to conflicting work schedules and financial woes, and in 1938 Lena made a return to the arts, starring in the musical film The Duke is Tops – for which she received no pay.