While The Birth of a Nation glorified white supremacy and the KKK, Jolson chose to star in The Jazz Singer, which defied racial bigotry by introducing American black music to audiences worldwide.

While growing up, Jolson had many black friends, including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who later became a prominent tap dancer. As early as 1911, at the age of 25, Jolson was already noted for fighting discrimination on the Broadway stage and later in his movies:

---"at a time when black people were banned from starring on the Broadway stage," he promoted the play by black playwright Garland Anderson, which became the first production with an all-black cast ever produced on Broadway;

---he brought an all-black dance team from San Francisco that he tried to feature in his Broadway show;

---he demanded equal treatment for Cab Calloway, with whom he performed a number of duets in his movie The Singing Kid;

---he was "the only white man allowed into an all black nightclub in Harlem".