Within Our Gates” [1920]

by Oscar MicheauxTopics Afro-American cinema, , Jim Crow, mob mentality, Oscar Micheaux, prejudice, racism

February in the United States celebrates “Black History Month” and thus this offering by Oscar Micheaux…”Within Our Gates” [1920]. It is a powerful narrative of an era long gone and exemplifies the ugliness of racial prejudice, injustice, and philosophically the collective conscience of mob mentality and loss of identity.

Wikipedia…

Within Our Gates (1920) is a silent race film that dramatically expresses the racial situation in America during the violent years of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration, and the emergence of the “New Negro”. The story focuses on an African-American woman who goes North in an effort to help a minister in the Deep South raise money to keep a school open for poor Black children. Her romance with a black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family’s past that expose the racial skeletons in America’s closet, most famously through the film’s depiction of a lynching. Produced, written and directed by novelist Oscar Micheaux, it is the oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director.

Within Our Gates” [1920]

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