Black Film and Television

All films with a predominantly or entirely African American cast or that were about African Americans are detailed here. Each entry includes cast and credits, year of release, studio, distributor, type of film and other production details. In most cases, a brief synopsis of the film or contemporary reviews of it follow.

Unfortunately, since they drew heavily on the nineteenth-century theatrical conventions of blackface minstrelsy and the "Uncle Tom Show" traditions, early pictures persisted in casting blacks in demeaning and outrageous caricatures that marginalized and burlesqued them and emphasized their comic or servile behavior. By contrast, race films--that is, movies that were black-cast, black-oriented, and viewed primarily by black audiences in segregated theaters--attempted to counter the crude stereotyping and regressive representations by presenting more authentic racial portrayals. This volume examines race filmmaking from numerous perspectives.

Viewing turn-of-the-century African American history through the lens of cinema, Envisioning Freedom examines the forgotten history of early black film exhibition during the era of mass migration and Jim Crow. By embracing the new medium of moving pictures at the turn of the twentieth century, black Americans forged a collective--if fraught--culture of freedom.

In the silent era, American cinema was defined by two separate and parallel industries, with white and black companies producing films for their respective, segregated audiences. Jane Gaines's book reconsiders the race films of this era with an ambitious historical and theoretical agenda.

Cedric J. Robinson analyzes theater and film of the early twentieth century. He argues that economic, political, and cultural forces present in the eras of silent film and the early "talkies" firmly entrenched limited representations of African Americans. Covers race films, silent film, and Golden Age films.

Judith Weisenfeld explores cinematic representations of African American religion and how they reflected and contributed to complicated discourses about race, the social and moral requirements of American citizenship, and the very nature of American identity.

Focusing on Black film culture in Chicago during the silent era, Migrating to the Movies begins with the earliest cinematic representations of African Americans and concludes with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and other early "race films" made for Black audiences, discussing some of the extraordinary ways in which African Americans staked their claim in cinema's development as an art and a cultural institution.

Oscar Micheaux--the most prolific African American filmmaker to date and a filmmaking giant of the silent period--has finally found his rightful place in film history. In this important collection, prominent scholars examine Micheaux's surviving silent films, his fellow producers of race films who alternately challenged or emulated his methods, and the cultural activities that surrounded and sustained these achievements.

In the early 1900s, so-called race filmmakers set out to produce black-oriented pictures to counteract the racist caricatures that had dominated cinema from its inception. Richard E. Norman, a southern-born white filmmaker, was one such pioneer. Together with his better-known contemporaries Oscar Micheaux and Noble and George Johnson, Richard E. Norman helped to define early race filmmaking.

Writing Himself Into History is an analysis of the career and artistry surrounding the legendary Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.