INDEPENDENT AFRICAN-AMERICAN FILMMAKERS

1915 saw for the first time the formation of the Independent African-American Filmmakers. African-Americans as independent filmmakers took up their cause by counter-attacking the making of The Birth of a Nation. They sought out their own financing in order to produce films with more positive images of Blacks. The Birth of a Race (ca. 1918) was to be the first independent black film undertaken and produced by Emmett J. Scott, personal secretary to Booker T. Washington of the Tuskeegee Institute. The film was released in 1919 but never drew movie goers as previously envisioned.

The Johnson Brothers, George P. and Noble Johnson, had already begun movie making as the Lincoln Motion Picture Company which opened business in the summer of 1915. They wanted to produce movies which presented Blacks "in his everyday life, a human being with human inclination and one of talent and intellect." By 1916, they completed and distributed two films, The Realization of the Negro's Ambition (1916) and A Trooper of Troop K (1916).
Two years before these films, Bert (Egbert Austin) Williams (1873-1922), the famed actor, singer and vaudevillian, became the first African-American to appear as a star in a motion picture. His 1914 film, Darktown Jubilee, was not well received even though his role was covered up in Blackface.

By Right of Birth, 1921, was another one of the "hope for success" movies produced by The Lincoln Motion Picture Company. It covered the portrayal of black life featuring successful middle-class African-Americans.

The seeds were now planted, and 1918 brought to the forefront the legendary name of Oscar Micheaux (1884-1951). Micheaux is credited with keeping the African-American independent movie production industry alive from 1918 thru 1948.

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Hollywood Shades of Color

American history will forever be inextricably bound to racism. Since its inception, American Cinema has been a microcosm of the U.S. itself; progressing and advancing in technology but still covered by the blanket of racism. Even as early as 1915, controversy loomed over the film "The Birth of a Nation" by D.W. Griffith. Based on the novel and play "The Clansman", the movie heroically portrays the Klu Klux Klan. It is tauted as an important film in history for its innovative technical achievements and also for its controversial promotion of white supremacy and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, which continues to actively use it as a recruiting tool.

The fact is, since the history of Hollywood there has been a proportionate absence of people of color. Not only in the areas of writing, producing, and directing have there been voids of color but most notably at the executive levels in major studios where very few people of color exist in decision-making roles.

NAACP Hollywood exec director Vicangelo Bulluck lamented a "structural racism (in) Hollywood, where deals are being made behind closed doors."

In the latest WGAW report, minority writers made scant progress in any sector in the study period. "More than 30% of the American population is nonwhite, yet writers of color continue to account for less than 10% of employed television writers," Hunt noted in an executive summary of the report. "These numbers will likely get worse before they get better because of the recent merger of UPN and the WB into the new CW network, which resulted in the cancellation of several minority-themed situation comedies that employed a disproportionate share of minority television writers.

"The situation is grimmer in film," he added, "where the minority share of employment has been stuck at 6% for years."

Although many strides have been made over the years to break the walls of racism in Hollywood, the divide of "Black Hollywood" and "White Hollywood" still persists. The only light at the end of the tunnel is that "Black Hollywood" continue to gain more control in financing, writing and distributing films of substance.

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Report: White males still dominate writing ranks
Black Hollywood Writers: Few Employed

Oscar Micheaux

Oscar Micheaux (January 2, 1893 – March 25, 1951) was a pioneering African American author and is widely recognized as being the first African-American filmmaker (although he was predated by the shortlived Lincoln Motion Picture Company^[1]). He is without a doubt the most famous producer of race films.

Oscar Micheaux (1893-1951)

Micheaux (or sometimes written as "Michaux"), was born near Metropolis, Illinois and grew up in Great Bend, Kansas, one of eleven children of former slaves. As a young boy he shined shoes and worked as a porter on the railway. As a young man, he very successfully homesteaded a farm in an all-white area of South Dakota where he began writing stories. Given the attitudes and restrictions on black people at the time, Micheaux overcame them by forming his own publishing company to buy his books door-to-house.

The advent of the motion picture industry intrigued him as a vehicle to tell his stories. He formed his own movie production company and in 1919 became the first African-American to make a film. He wrote, directed and produced the silent motion picture The Homesteader, starring the pioneering African American actress Evelyn Preer, based on his novel of the same name.

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Hollywood Soul - Early Years

Black characters have appeared in Hollywood films for as long as motion pictures have been produced. In the early years the hiring of black performers was rare. When feature roles requiring a black player came along, the film’ producers habitually hired white actors and let him, or her portray the character in “Blackface”.

Midnight Ramble concerns Black Hollywood from the period just after World War I through the 1940s. It considers everything from the low budget, independent Race movies of Oscar Micheaux to major studio productions. It’s a tribute to a very misunderstood, and mysterious film genre that lasted for over forty years.

By the decade of 1960s Black American performers were beginning to merge into Hollywood’s mainstream. And as with the demise of “B” film, another door closed on an intriguing and engaging component of the provocative history of Hollywood, and the motion picture industry.

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Hollywood Soul

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