1BlessedNatural| Black History Month: Diahann Carroll in Julia Award-winning actress and singer, Diahann Carroll starred in the 1968 NBC television show Julia . She was the first African-American actress to star in a show where she did not play a servant. The show was about a widowed mother who worked as a nurse to support herself and her son "Corey." The premise of the show was unheard of and Carroll received negative feedback about it. She was hospitalized for a short time due to stress. In the beginning, Carroll faced much criticism because she was an African-American woman. In a 2009 interview by the " National Leadership Visionary Project ", the actress says that African-American men were less likely to get roles (at that time) than African-American women, because they were seen as a threat. She said, "The objection was that the female was always given the opportunity. That the black male causes a kind of fear running through the working white h...