Fredi began her career as a dancer at the Cotton Club in Harlem during the 1920s.  She appeared in Black and Tan, a short film featuring Duke Ellington and his orchestra, in 1929 and went on to a career in motion pictures.  She is most famous for her portrayal of Peola in Imitation of Life (1934).  Peola, a light-skinned young African American woman, chooses to pass as white in order to escape racial discrimination.

Like Peola, Fredi experienced limited opportunities because of her race, but unlike Peola, she never denied her African American heritage.  She helped found the Negro Actors Guild of America in 1937 and served as Entertainment Editor of the People’s Voice, established in 1942 by Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who married Fredi’s sister.  Fredi was also active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She played opposite the great African American actor Paul Robeson on several occasions, most notably in the film version of The Emperor Jones in 1933, but also in a 1926 production of Black Boy at the Stamford Theater.