PIONEERS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA

The FAMU Library has recently acquired two exceptional collections of digitally restored African-American films from the first half of the 20th century. Previously only available in poor-quality copies in archives, these films represent a little-known area in the history of cinema.

The Pioneers of African-American Cinema collection offers an introduction to films that were created as an alternative to mainstream Hollywood productions, in which the representation of African Americans was subject to negative stereotypes. The films were financed and shot by independent African-American production companies, featuring black actors and intended for black audiences. They addressed issues of social, gender and racial discrimination. These films belong to a genre known as "race films".

Oscar Micheaux: The Complete Collection presents all 17 of the surviving works by the most significant African-American director of this era, O. Micheaux (1884–1951).

The oldest surviving film, Within Our Gates (1920), is considered a response to Griffith's Intolerance and depicts the difficult situations experienced by African-Americans after World War I.

Themes in Micheaux's films include racial segregation, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination in the workplace, lynching, sexual violence, religion as a means of manipulating the poor, the migration of African-Americans to cities in the northern United States, difficult access to education, and economic exploitation.

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