Black Shadows on a Silver Screen

Series: The American document

Duration: 55 min.

Creator: Lucerne

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: This history of African American filmmakers between 1900 to 1950 demonstrates the fact that motion pictures made by blacks in the early days of the film industry were intended to portray themselves as they were, as opposed to the way white filmmakers showed them on the screen.

Complete Record: , A documentary study of motion picture productions by and for Blacks, a neglected chapter in American film history. In 1915, from the time of the first reaction to racist attitudes and imagery in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, Black producers, companies and actors sought to counteract the effect. Most successful was Oscar Micheaux who changed and refocused the Black image until the crash of 1929. The best of the overseas films were British and starred Paul Robeson. Films included in this study are: Natural Born Gambler, Birth of a Race, Black and Tan, So Red the Rose, and Pinky. , NOTE: Two (or more) records have been merged together to create this data.