In a small collection at the American Heritage Center – apparently the only archival collection of her papers anywhere – actress Butterfly McQueen preserved a series of typescript works that made me wonder: of all her experiences, why did she choose to document these particular stories?

Born Thelma McQueen in Tampa, Florida, in 1911, she picked up the nickname “Butterfly” while dancing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Most people remember her as Prissy, the chatty and easily flustered house servant in Gone with the Wind (1939). But the personal archives she chose to preserve tell a much richer story about her life beyond that famous role.

A Voice Beyond Hollywood

In the 1970s, McQueen self-published the literary works found in her papers, pricing them at $2.00 (with a $1.50 student discount) and positioning them as serious contributions to the era’s social and cultural conversations. These materials, now available to researchers at the AHC, provide unique insights into both McQueen’s life and the cultural landscape of mid-20th century America.

“My writings are a tribute to the visionary ‘Thinkers’ and the relentless ‘Doers’ who shape our world.“

In a work she titled “Students or Victims?,” she chronicles her determined pursuit of education across multiple institutions – from City College of New York (CCNY) to Barnard, UCLA, and Southern Illinois University. She writes candidly about being told at Barnard, located in New York City, that “special arrangements” would need to be made for her attendance, contrasting this with the “beauty of California’s free college.” Her account of campus life in the 1970s is particularly vivid, describing the racial dynamics of the “Budweiser lounge” and offering sharp observations about class and drug use in academic settings.

“Yes, you may enter Barnard,” the examiner was telling me, “but we will have to make special arrangements for your attendance here, Miss McQueen.” This I did not like.

“Black Dog (Female, That Is) at Mt. Morris-Marcus Garvey Recreation Center” documents McQueen’s five years (1969-1974) of employment at the Harlem-based rec center. Her writing captures a challenging time which saw the new community center deteriorating into what she describes as “almost a slum dwelling in four years.” Through detailed observations and candid commentary, she creates a compelling portrait of community life and institutional challenges in 1970s Harlem.

“Why, I ask myself, was I raised to feel comfortable only in cleanliness and order? Why?! When so many others seem so content!“

A fascinating piece is “A Fan Letter to Trisha Nixon Eisenhower,” written in the aftermath of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Far from a conventional fan letter, it’s a complex meditation on power, politics, and human nature. She offers a surprisingly nuanced analysis of Nixon’s relationship with the Black community, writing, “One of your father’s greatest sins was to show love for us Blacks,” arguing that Nixon actually supported Black business leaders and understood that hearts “must change voluntarily and not by force.”

Finding Deeper Meaning

But it’s her “Miscellanea” collection, that is particularly rich with insights. “Miscellanea” reveals McQueen’s gift for transforming life’s painful moments into penetrating social commentary. Consider her encounter with Lena Horne, one of the most prominent Black performers of the 1940s, during a wartime radio recording. The interaction occurred during an era when Horne was celebrated for glamorous roles while McQueen was typecast in stereotypical maid roles that reinforced racial stereotypes – parts that McQueen later said she grew to resent. Finding themselves momentarily alone, Horne fixed McQueen with a look and called her “You dog!” – unleashing what McQueen described as “centuries of horridly bitter hatred.” Yet McQueen’s response transcends the personal hurt. Instead of anger, she writes philosophically, “Thank you, Lena Horne for introducing me to the stark pitiable misery of a top success.”

This ability to find deeper meaning in difficult encounters appears throughout her writings. On Jack Benny’s popular radio show of the 1940s, McQueen initially played the girlfriend of Rochester, a witty valet character portrayed by Black actor Eddie Anderson, before being switched to the role of Mary Livingston’s maid. One day during rehearsal, Benny, furious at Anderson’s lateness, declared he “hated all Africans” because of the “dirt and squalor” he saw during USO shows in North Africa. Rather than focusing on the personal hurt, McQueen reflects on missed opportunities for dialogue. She later wondered if she could have used Benny’s outburst to address broader issues of cleanliness and social responsibility in America.

“Primarily, I left the show because Mr. Benny, in a temper over Rochester’s lateness, said he hated all Africans. Naive me! Had I known then that here, too, in America, there was dirt and squalor I could have helped by telling what Mr. Benny had said.“

Her observations of Broadway life are equally revealing. She recounts how actor Leon Janney quit Three Men on a Horse after discovering two stars were receiving $1,000 weekly bonuses from box office earnings. While Janney took to his “dressing room cot” in protest, McQueen notes her own response with characteristic irony – here she was, “a BLACK adult,” surprised by the “childish actions” of “a WHITE adult.” Though “a bit peeved” herself, she was more fascinated by the contractual mechanics that allowed some agents to negotiate better terms than others.

Through it all runs McQueen’s mordant wit and unflinching honesty about human nature. Whether describing the “mind-controllers” she suspected influenced celebrities’ behavior or pondering why some prosper through insincerity while others struggle with integrity, she consistently moves beyond personal grievance to explore larger questions about power, prejudice, and human fallibility.

A Life of Unconventional Achievement

McQueen was an unconventional figure in many ways. She was an outspoken atheist who won the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Freethought Heroine Award in 1989. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from City College of New York at age 64, declaring “We were born to improve ourselves as human beings.” Her early involvement with the International Workers Order and its Harlem Suitcase Theater, where she made her acting debut in Langston Hughes’ “Don’t You Want to be Free?”, suggests a longstanding commitment to using art for social change.

“Work was and is my way of praying. I served ‘my creator’ by my day to day activities… Jobs may come and jobs may go but my present service was security for a better future.”

What strikes me most about this collection is what McQueen chose to preserve – and what she didn’t. There are no scripts, no Hollywood memorabilia, no material from her famous roles. Instead, she saved writings that documented her observations of American society and her efforts to make sense of her experiences as a Black woman navigating multiple worlds – Hollywood, academia, and community service.

Through her self-published writings, priced to reach students and academics, McQueen seems to have been working to ensure that future generations would understand not just what happened in these spaces, but what it meant. Whether describing a chance encounter with Lena Horne or documenting life at a Harlem recreation center, she consistently focused on moments that revealed larger truths about institutional power and social dynamics in American life. In doing so, she left us not just a record of events, but a model for how to learn from them.

Post contributed by AHC Archivist Leslie Waggener.