Your Black History: The Beginning of Race Films
Today, if you ask most people who was the first Black man to start a Motion Picture Company, there is a good chance that many will say Tyler Perry, referring to his studio in Atlanta Georgia. While the opening of Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta is certainly a commendable accomplishment, he is not the first Black man to accomplish that fete.
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux, who lived from January 2, 1884 to March 25, 1951 was was an American author, film director and independent producer. He produced more than 44 films. The Lincoln Motion Picture Company produced films for a short time but it was the first major Black owned motion picture company and Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was known as the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century. He was also known as the most prominent producer of race films.
The fifth of eleven children, Oscar Micheaux’s grandparents and parents had been slaves. Micheaux worked in an auto factory, a coal mine, and as a porter, gradually saving enough from his meager wages to buy a small farmstead in virtually all-white South Dakota, where a drought drove him bankrupt. He wrote of his adventures in several books which he published himself, most notably The Homesteader, and in 1919, with no motion picture experience, he filmed his novel on location in South Dakota — the first feature film made for black audiences by an all-black cast and crew. With that film’s success, Micheaux became a moviemaker for the rest of his life, making at least 44 independent action films, dramas, and mysteries that were virtually unseen and unknown to white audiences but drew a steady and profitable box office at about 400 black-owned theaters in America, and in “midnight shows” for black audiences in white-owned theaters.
40 Responses to Your Black History: The Beginning of Race Films
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Notice, this brother just catered to an ALL BLACK AUDIENCE!!! He did this in the 1800′s, where are the Black brothers, who SHOULD BE DOING THIS in 2013?
When will the Tyler Perrys’, Spike Lees, Mike Singletons, and the other Black movie directors come forward, and stop waiting on caucasoids to back them up!
With 1 Trillion dollars and CONSUMER debt, and entertainment centers, that collect 270 million dollars PER SUN-DAY, we shouldn’t be depending on caucasoids for a da*mn thang!!!
WE SHOULD BE ‘OWNING” OUR OWN DA*MN THEATERS, STORES, MOVIE COMPANIES, ETC., ETC.!!!
You are d**n right.I do not know why we do not believe in our own genius.It must have something to do with our histoy.It seems when I read our blogs we are in so many directions we cannot not see the forest for the trees.
Stop talking like a fool. All negroes are being stripped of their wealth from the top to the bottom. You think that high jobless rate puts money in black people’s pockets.
It is easier said than done. This is 2013 some one hundred and something years after. Things have changed and it is a more diversified America. Remember he is just after slavery so a lot of things remained in place then. I understand your point but today is a lot different.
He did have a certain advantage to his greatness. It was a captive African American audience. An audience that could not go to any other films or theaters. That being said, his vision, determination and race commitment are still what we need today.
Well said. Well said.
Govt policy gave him that advantage, but your black govt today gives black people nothing – not even the right to own our own markets in our own neighborhoods like we used to just 30 years ago. Now the foreign born are licensed to muck up our communities.
I agree with Carlos & Grgory. Americans of African descent do not patronize each other. There is no reason for any black business in a major city to go under. However, we should make sure that we deliver the quality expected no matter what the service or product. We tend to think that we, as a race, will accept anything. Not so. There is a lot of talent and greatness in us. We have to appreciate each other well enough to make us great. It is harder now but it is doable.
He was a Chicagoan and had a studio in the historic Bronzeville area.
where are the films now..??
Besides Oscar Micheaux making race films for his own people, all the major studios made “race” films for segregated Southern audiences, and even “ethnic” films for recent immigrants in the North, who couldn’t speak English. In addition, there were films entirely in Yiddish, with stage actors from the Yiddish stage from New York for that specific audience. The black race films from the major studios numbered in the hundreds, and many of them starred the actor who later went on to play “Kingfish” in the tv show, “Amos and Andy”. He happened to star in dozens of them, playing the male lead lover, the villian, and all the other parts in films that the studios made to explore the black experience in America at that time. They were made fast and cheap, and like the other commentor said, had a guaranteed audience in the South in the segregated movie theater circuit. Unfortunately, like so many other movies, silent fims from the teens, and talkies from the twenties and thirties, including hundreds of regular mainstream films, hundreds of these race films, ethnic films, and Yiddish films are completely lost, or deteriorated to nothing, due to the silver nitrate film they used. This is not only a great loss to black history, but to American cinematic history. The directors,Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, the American Film Institure, and others are trying to preserve some of the deteriorating films, but hundreds of films every year, of every type are being lost, and will never be able to be brought back. There are even people trying to preserve some of the hundreds of pornographic films of the ’60s and ’70s, but most of them are already lost, as well. As Americans, of all backgrounds, we tend to have a very short attention span, and move on to the next thing, forgetting about anything historical from the past, and this results in a lot of lost history. This is a shame. Glenn in the Bronx, NY
As a child in Alabama in the early 1940′s we could only see BALCK movies in a white owned theater. When we moved to Ohio in 1948, it was my first experience seeing a “WHITE” movie with an all white cast. My stars were the tall Black cowboys in their white hats on their white horses and man could they really sing. That too would be something to research to see who they were. samjr
On the subject of Blacks who appear in Oscar’s Movies, Let us not overlook or forget the documented fact that like most of the white movie producers of his era, who either preceded and came after him. Oscar, for some inexplainable reason also adopted their (white people’s) deplorable practice of presenting “only” super lighter complexioned blacks in the forefront and vanguard of his movies, such as the singing cowboy you mentioned who was so light in appearence that many thought he was actually white or non black. And if you really think about it we havent actually got too far away from the practice of favoring bi-racials or whiter appearing females in our own productions. Please, by all means, correct me, if you feel with reason that I’m mistaken on this.
During Black History Month some of the Older Movie Channels show the cowboy movies and others with a famous black lead who made a few (can’t recall his name)
I agree with you on this whole-heartedly. It is a move to continue to oppress blackness. It is sad that many black actors, female and male, but especially females, are overlooked for roles, unless they are demeaning in some way. If a darker female is allowed to play a role, there are slight acts that must be protrayed to keep the actor “in her place”. The actor never gets the lead actor and usually is a co-hort of the person that does. I blame many actors for taking these roles, which belittle our race. The few actors that get good roles end up lighten their skin so much that the next time you see them, you can hardly recognize them. Thank you for your insight. It is good to know I am not alone with these thoughts.
Wow Mr Sam Jr. Thanks for sharing!
You will find some of his films on Youtube. I used some in school last year. Take a look.
TV One or BET are the ones to bring it to the masses. Black History Month is around the corner
Most of this Guys films was just like Tyler Perry’s films were the Dark Skin Brother is the Criminal & the Mixed type is looked at as better! These films are full of Small minded Slave Mentalities not in any way representing Black Brothers in the Belly of these Beasts! I seen some of his films he was in love with Leana Horn type sisters very Weird films!
They used color in the slavery days to separate us and we still have that mentality now, divide and conquer!
I suggest that you watch the my video black family, I simply have no time to regeratate on blogs. DJANGO UNCHAINED is to distroy The Parting Ways Project,and to take over a landdevelopment and seal a contract for a 2nd CIVIL WAR. After viewing this video,ask your black leaders ,why they don’t know about the Parting Ways Project? Peace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4g5w3rrzto
Happy New Year to you all!. I am pretty sure that we can go to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for the films by Oscar Micheaux and that may be the best place to determine if Academy “Oscar” Award was named after Mr. Micheaux. I also think that the captive Tyler Perry audience would like his films. Ish you are pretty much right, but does his films not speak to the perpetuation of our own internal bias, resulting from slavery? T P has the option of changing the stereotype and he does; not all of his films are the same. I cannot speak about his plays because I do not got to see them. Peace!
I would not have said She P. lol, but thanks for this information of our history!