Directed by Oscar Micheaux • 1920 • United States
Starring Evelyn Preer, William Starks, Mattie Edwards
WITHIN OUR GATES is the earliest surviving feature film by an African American director. It was Oscar Micheaux’s second film (after 1919’s THE HOMESTEADER, now lost), centering on an idealistic young woman named Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer, one of the first great stars of the race film) who attempts to raise money for an elementary school for black children. In the course of navigating the racial politics of both the black and white communities, Sylvia’s past is revealed in a series of flashbacks that contain the film’s most notorious sequence: the lynching of her parents by a white mob. Micheaux’s staging of the scene is startling in its bluntness and speaks volumes about the director’s fearlessness and willingness to address taboo subject matter. The film touches upon other themes that would recur throughout the controversial filmmaker’s career, such as the promise of rural life vs. the corrupting influence of the city, and the use of religion as a means of misleading the black community.
Up Next in Celebrate Black History
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The Blood of Jesus
Directed by Spencer Williams • 1941 • United States
Starring Cathryn Caviness, Spencer Williams, Juanita RileyThe first feature by director/actor Spencer Williams (commonly remembered today as Andy on TV’s “Amos ’n’ Andy”), THE BLOOD OF JESUS is a rural religious parable in which a woman (Cathr...
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Nothing but a Man
Directed by Michael Roemer • 1964 • United States
Starring Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, Julius HarrisMichael Roemer’s groundbreaking first feature, sensitively shot by his close collaborator Robert M. Young, is a still-resonant expression of humanity in the face of virulent prejudice. Made at the...
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A Time for Burning
Directed by Barbara Connell and Bill Jersey • 1966 • United States
With extraordinary access and unflinching frankness, this remarkable, underseen documentary offers an X-ray of the soul of a divided America working through the social shockwaves of the civil rights movement. The film chronicles ...
