Hilda’s midwestern Catholic background made her the diametric opposite of Anna, yet she accepted the role. For the first time theater audiences would experience a complex Black character, no matter that the character was a sex worker. — from “Red Stained”

Hilda Simms was a Catholic girl from a big Minneapolis family who attended St. Margaret’s Academy and wanted to be a dramatic actress. With what was described by one reporter as “peach colored” skin, she could have “passed” for white. But she always identified as Black at a time when Hollywood and Broadway were strictly segregated. Hilda, a hard worker confident of her acting abilities, broke that tradition when she played the leading role in “Anna Lucasta,” originally written by Eugene O’Neill. She first appeared with the American Negro Theatre’s production in Harlem and in 1944 at the Mansfield Theater on Broadway with an all-Black cast.

(Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society Press)

“Hilda Simms was making history as she moved under the stage lights and transformed into a tough yet vulnerable sex worker looking for stability through familial ties,” Jokeda “JoJo” Bell writes in her involving and so-necessary new book “Red Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms” (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $22.95).

The book’s title comes from the government’s Cold War surveillance of actors and others in the arts by the FBI and investigations by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee. Ironically, the government confiscated Simms’ passport just as she was about to leave for a USO tour to entertain the troops in Europe. Simms had immersed herself in U.S. civil rights causes and spoke openly about the anti-racist policies of the Soviet Union. When she came under the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice, her promising acting career was ended. She had a small role in one theater production and played the wife of Joe Louis in a film about the champion boxer. (“The Joe Louis Story” is available via Google, but viewers have to sit through several prize fights before Simms makes her appearance.)

In later years Simms helped chart a path for Black actors who wanted to be serious dramatists as well as played a prominent role in the burgeoning civil rights movement. She died in 1994 and is buried in Resurrection cemetery in Mendota Heights.

Bell’s book tells the story of a remarkable woman proud to be a Black actor at a time when Black men and women were usually cast as servants or in comedy roles. Although her fame peaked with “Anna Lucasta” she used her celebrity to bring awareness of Black life to Americans, including a radio show. And she worked with prominent Black artists such as her friend Langston Hughes. One of her causes was making actors’ unions pay attention to Black members. She also raised money for organizations she cared about, calling on help from her friends.

Jokeda “JoJo” Bell (Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society Press)

“Red Stained” is about Simms’ life, but Bell weaves into her story insights into “race and roles” with explanations about what white theater audiences expected and what the growing Black middle class wanted. She looks at the differences in the way Black and white women are treated in scripts based on racial stereotypes.

Bell is executive director/director of exhibitions and programming for the African American Interpretive Center of Minnesota. She has given us a rich portrait of a determined woman who made theater history and gave of herself to other Black actors who shared her belief in realistically portraying the lives of Black men and women. Let’s hope this book is in every school library and that it finds wide adult readership.

The author will discuss her book at 1 p.m. Saturday at Strive bookstore, 901 Nicollet Mall, Mpls. It’s free and open to the public.

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