Eartha Kitt’s Words on Backlash for Marrying Interracially in the 60s Still Ring True Today

A quote from legendary actress Eartha Kitt is circulating on social media and sparking discussion on black women, black men and interracial marriage. In it Kitt answers whether she faced backlash for marrying real estate investor Bill McDonald from 1960 to 1965.

M: Do you think you faced a lot of resentment just because you were married to a white man. E: Oh yes, that caused the resentment. I was married to Bill McDonald in 1960. People would say ‘Why didn’t you marry a Black man?’ I would reply “because the white girls had them!” The men I wanted to be with, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, dated predominatly white women. I’m talking about the 50s. When Harry Belfonte picks me out of his bed in Philadelphia and said: ‘I don’t want you to take me seriously because no Black woman can do anything for me’. I could not help him to progress into where he was going to go. “A black woman would hold a black man back’, that’s what he told me. If I wanted to marry a black man there wasn’t one because the white girls had them.

Wow.

Although it’s not clear where this quote was lifted from, Kitt’s story about Harry Belafonte is similar to one recounted in Ellen Holly’s autobiography. You can see that snippet here.

It’s 55 years later and Kitt’s words are all too familiar.

Ladies, what are your thoughts?