Feature Presentation | Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Micheaux was born on January 2, 1884 in Metropolis, Illinois and died on March 25, 1951 in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the interim, he became the first African-American to direct, write, and produce a feature-length film, The Homesteaders (1919). He would go on to make more than forty more throughout his prolific career, including Within Our Gates (1920), which appears to be a response to D.W. Griffith's negative portrayal of blacks in The Birth of a Nation (1915). In a time when they were generally portrayed in demeaning roles, Micheaux's films depicted African-Americans and their community in a more positive light.
But Micheaux was much more than a filmmaker. He was a writer as well and wrote seven novels in all, including his first, The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913), which relates his experiences as a homesteader in South Dakota as a young man. The most successful book that he wrote was The Case of Mrs. Wingate (1945), which he published, distributed, and promoted on his own. Late in his life he gave this response to why he published his own books:
"I'm tired of reading about the Negro in an inferior position in society. I want to see them in dignified roles...Also, I want to see the white man and the white woman as the villians...I want to see the Negro pictured in books just like he lives. But, if you write that way, the white book publishers won't publish your scripts...so I formed my own book publishing firm and write my own books, and Negroes like them, too, because three of them are best sellers." ( N.Y. Amsterdam News Obituary, Saturday, April 7, 1951 )
Today, Oscar Micheaux's legacy is still alive. In March 2001, the city of Great Bend, Kansas (one of his adopted homes as well as his burial site) hosted a "Golden Anniversary Memorial Celebration" celebrating his very rich contribution to society.
Here are some sources for learning more about Oscar Micheaux and his legacy:
- Websites:
- Oscar Micheaux Home Page: A website dedicated to Oscar Micheaux with a large variety of information including news clippings, photos, and event listings, as well as the complete filmography and bibliography of his collected works.
- The Micheaux Society: An organization sponsored by the Duke University Program in Film and Video that is devoted to the preservation of and scholarship about Oscar Micheaux's works.
- The Micheaux Foundation: A non-profit organization with the aim of keeping up Oscar Micheaux's tradition by aiding independent filmmakers.
- Oscar Micheaux Biography: A short biography on the Producer's Guild of America Website.
- Micheaux Independent Film Festival: Held in Great Bend, Kansas on June 14 and 15, 2003.
- Books:
- Bowser, Pearl and Louise Spence. Writing Himself into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
- Bowser, Pearl, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser. Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001.
- Green, Ronald J. Straight Lick: The Cinema of Oscar Micheaux. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000.
- Young, Joseph A. Black Novelist as White Racist: The Myth of Black Inferiority in the Novels of Oscar Micheaux. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.
