The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will bestow a replacement Oscar for supporting actress winner Hattie McDaniel to Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts during a ceremony titled “Hattie’s Come Home” in Washington D.C. on October 1.

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Taking place at the Ira Aldridge Theater, the ceremony will celebrate McDaniels’ life and legacy, her historic Academy Award win, and reunite her prize with the long-running HBCU, as she originally intended. The event will include opening remarks by Phylicia Rashad, dean of the College of Fine Arts, along with a performance of a medley of songs from current students and an excerpt from LaDarrion Williams’ play “Boulevard of Bold Dreams.

“Hattie McDaniel was a groundbreaking artist who changed the course of cinema and impacted generations of performers who followed her,” Stewart and Bill Kramer, Academy CEO, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to present a replacement of Hattie McDaniel’s Academy Award to Howard University. This momentous occasion will celebrate Hattie McDaniel’s remarkable craft and historic win.”

Rashad added, “I am overjoyed that this Academy Award is returning to what is now the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. This immense piece of history will be back in the College of Fine Arts for our students to draw inspiration from. Ms. Hattie is coming home!”

First Black Winner

In 1940, McDaniel made history as the first Black person to be nominated for and win a competitive Academy Award for her supporting performance as “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind (1939). At the 12th Academy Awards, held at the segregated Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel, McDaniel and her guest were seated separately from the film’s other nominees. Before McDaniel died of breast cancer in 1952, she specified that her prize should be donated to Howard University.

For years, there were rumors about where the plaque and statuette could be — was it lost, or destroyedt?