The Hollywood Canteen

During the WW2, actress Bette Davis (1908/1989) was the chairman of the Hollywood Victory Committee and she founded the legendary Hollywood Canteen, along with fellow Warner Bros actor John Garfield (1913/1952). The Canteen was free to active servicemen of all ages, and was an escapist’s dream: they could dance with starlets, and get served up food by their favorite Hollywood actors.
But Bette Davis had one extremely controversial stipulation: that the canteen be integrated.

This meant, of course, that black soldiers would be able to dance with white women in public. As heroic America was during that War, it was still deeply rooted in Jim Crow laws and open interracial mingling was something that was just NOT done. It strictly White-Only and Black-Only.
Bette Davis received intense heat for her decision, but she and Garfield refused to back down and fought for the club to be racially integrated. Their solution was simple: if not, they’d quit. And without stars, there wasn’t a canteen. Davis won, and the Canteen was successfully integrated.

By the end of the war, nearly 3 million troops had passed through its doors.
The Hollywood Canteen closed at the end of the war, donating its leftover funds to veterans' charities.