RIP—Shirley Temple Black—Child film star and imperialist ambassador

Shirley Temple is best known for being a child film star, where she danced, sang and did cute kid stuff that most people found entertaining. One of her most famous dance scenes was in The Little Colonel, 1935, where she danced with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

She played in at least two civil war movies, the one just listed and The Littlest Rebel, 1935. At times her movies were openly racist. That was not unusual considering the time period they were made in.

Temple played in movies and TV shows as she got older, but her career wound down the older she got.

In January 1950, Temple met Charles Alden Black, a WWII United States Navy intelligence officer and Silver Star recipient who was Assistant to the President of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. Conservative and patrician, he was the son of James B. Black, the president and later chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric, and reputedly one of the richest young men in California. Temple and Black were married on December 16, 1950.

After that, Shirley Temple Black was a conservative Republican who was involved with imperialist politics. She was appointed Representative to the 24th United Nations General Assembly by President Richard M. Nixon (September – December 1969) and was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana (December 6, 1974 – July 13, 1976) by President Gerald R. Ford. Her first experience with Africa came in a short film she made Kid In Africa, 1933:

The last president to appoint her ambassador was President George H. W. Bush to the country of Czechoslovakia (August 23, 1989 – July 12, 1992). After that she sat on various boards of corporations. -