Was Tallulah a racist?
As a Southern woman born in 1902, she had no compunction about dressing up as a Mammy to entertain Stephan Cole, strictly at home in the 1940s.
And yet she was enormously active in the integration movement, and even criticized her Southern relatives for their attitudes.
Robert Hooks, whose memoirs we are awaiting with anticipation, vividly and fondly recalls his conversations about civil rights with her during The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore in 1964.