 They included luminaries such as tap dancers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers, jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and the actress Hattie McDaniel.In 1939 McDaniel was the first black person to receive an Academy Award when she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Mammy in "Gone with the Wind".African-American athletes faced much discrimination during the Jim Crow period.