The Bench.

It's one of LA's perfect days, 70 degrees and a bright clear blue sky.

We are at the sprawling Hollywood Forever Cemetery

off Melrose Avenue, the Entertainment Industries version of Westminster Abbey.

The list of notables buried here, Judy Garland, Douglas Fairbanks, Berg Reynolds, Chris Cornell, Rudolph Valentino, Cecil B. DeMille, Mickey Rooney, two of the Ramones.

The list goes on and on. The dedicated cemetery historian Cary Bible is giving one of her famous tours.

Welcome to Hollywood Forever.

The cemetery was originally established in 1899.

It's on the National Registry of Historic Places,

and it truly is one of the beautiful historic gems of Los Angeles.

We arrive at a lovely man-made lake, populated by peacocks and swans,

and dominated by what looks like a foe Grecian temple.

On the edge of the lake is a pale pink marble marker dedicated to Hattie McDaniel, the most famous black actor of pre-war Hollywood.

So it's no surprise that she wanted to be buried in Hollywood's premiere cemetery.

You know, it just makes sense that, you know, she would want to be among peers.

But when she died in 1952, there was a problem.

The owner in the early 50s, when Hattie passed away, was racist and told her family no.

Instead, she was given burial at Angeles Rosedow, which was her second plan.

This wasn't an unusual situation.

During the era of Jim Crow, countless cemeteries across America

were whites only, were segregated in his so-called separate but equal sections. In fact, until the 1950s, about 90% of all public

cemeteries in America were segregated in some way and Hollywood for all its alleged liberal bias was no exception.

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