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♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[ Speaking Italian ]

♪♪

[ Reel whirring ]

♪♪

♪♪

Chuck D:
Looked at Oscar Micheaux

as the originator of DIY --

do-it-yourself, independent.

♪♪

Asante:
He means groundbreaking.

He means freedom
and possibilities --

the possibility
for me to exist.

Kwei-Armah: Oscar Micheaux
means you can do it.

No matter what your environment,
no matter what your time,

you can simply do it.

♪♪

Stewart: Oscar Micheaux is
the most important

black filmmaker who ever lived.

Period.

♪♪

[ Charles Mingus'
"Freedom" plays ]

♪♪

We do have an entry
in black history...

♪♪

...who made what personally
amounts to his shovel.

He was Spike Lee
before there was Spike Lee.

♪♪

And this is the 70th anniversary
of his passing.

♪♪

Mingus:
This mule ain't from Moscow.

This mule ain't from the South.

But this mule's had
some learning.

Mostly mouth-to-mouth.

It was very tough
for most black families

and black people at that time,
knew what they had to do.

We had come through
the worst of being slaves.

Then there was a civil war.

Mingus: So stand fast,
young Romeo.

Soothe in contemplation

thy burning whole
and aching thigh.

Your stubbornness is ever-living

and cruel anxiety
is about to die.

So after the aftermath,
it was like,

okay, either we're going to
have to learn this well,

do for self, a do or die.

♪ Freedom for your
daddy's daddy ♪

♪ Freedom for your mama's mama ♪

♪ Freedom for your
brothers and sisters ♪

♪ But no freedom for me ♪

Freeman: It was difficult
for everybody,

but he was determined
and quite successful.

♪♪

You can make it if you try.

If you think Oscar Micheaux,

you think, put your head down

and go forward,
and you'll get it done.

I wonder how many know him?

[ Birds chirping ]

I discovered Oscar Micheaux
by by accident.

I was at the Carbondale,
Illinois, library

looking at the
nonfiction section,

and there's this picture
of him on the cover

that looks compelling.

I start reading that book
and I can't put it down,

and I couldn't believe I hadn't
heard about this man's story.

It's the greatest American story

that nobody knows
anything about.

♪♪

McGilligan: Well, his family
came from Kentucky.

They were slaves.

They crossed into southern
Illinois when slaves were freed,

and they started to tend farms
outside a small town

called Metropolis.

♪♪

♪♪

Micheaux, because he was
raised in a farm family,

really had
this rugged individualism

and this hard work ethic.

He's five of 11 children.

♪♪

Kwei-Armah: His relationship
with his mother was profound,

and it was profound because
she probably had the ambition

of all of those
who were enslaved,

which is one day,
not only will we be free,

but we will be equal
and have equity in this land.

♪♪

His mother was a great admirer
of Booker T. Washington.

Booker T. Washington's
great philosophy

was that education would lift
black people up in America.

At Micheaux's time,
there's all these legal barriers

to stop black folks
from moving forward.

And education was really
the only thing you could use

to break through
some of these barriers,

and Micheaux used it
to his full advantage.

He believed in kind of pulling
yourself up by your bootstraps.

He believed in the whole notion
of learning a skill

and combining that
with kind of education

and really moving forward
with that.

His trajectory from being
a young man, or a teenager even,

was to get out
of Metropolis, head north,

where there was opportunity,
better money,

and thousands of black people

living in the black belt
of Chicago.

[ Birds chirping ]

♪♪

He wasn't a slave anymore,

so the fact that a lot of
black folks

there were able
to be nomadic and travel

and be able to get
great experiences

away from being in one place.

That's what also galvanized
a lot of this energy and talent.

♪♪

Willmott: Well, Chicago is
kind of exploding at that time.

You know, it is part
of the Great Migration,

a lot of black folks
leaving the South

to find the American dream,
really.

♪♪

Stewart: It was a really
powerful community

in the sense that
there formed the basis

for a kind of
political mobilization

and the creation
of vibrant black culture

and black artistic communities.

And so this was
a really important space

in which Micheaux
could start to imagine

where he can make
a name for himself.

♪♪

Peña: I think he was someone
who looked forward.

And, you know, in many ways,
the key experience for Micheaux,

I believe, was when he worked
as a Pullman porter

on the American railroads.

[ Train whistle blows ]

[ Up-tempo jazz music plays ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Even though they were waiters

and sort of cabin people,
people who made up rooms,

they did, in a sense, mingle

with very high-class
white people

and talk to them
and get to know them,

and I think Micheaux,
in that experience, said,

"If these people
can live like this,

I can live like this
and African-Americans

can live like this."

♪♪

♪♪

It's no surprise to me that
someone like Micheaux would,

like someone like Malcolm X,
their early life,

their formative years be shaped
by some degree

of working on the train,
working on a railroad.

That's a defining
sort of modernist impulse.

And so Micheaux is
a part of that.

He is a part of this ebb
and flow of culture and ideas

and imagination
that the train really embodies.

McGilligan: He met people.
He talked to them.

He got books from them.

He learned about society,
about politics,

about entertainment
in different cities.

♪♪

It really made him
a worldly man,

much more than a lot of people

who spend their lives
entirely in the Midwest.

[ Train rattling ]

♪♪

Pullman porters,
at that point in time,

were both like the greatest job
in the world for a black person,

but also the worst job
in the world for a black person.

It's terrible because you
have to pay for your uniform,

all your meals, laundering.

Eventually, you have no money
out of your salary.

One of the things
that all the Pullman porters did

was to sell tickets on board,

it was called,
but not report that money

and then sometimes steal money.

He was, in fact,
fired once for taking money.

They believed he took $5.

So what did he do,
being Oscar Micheaux?

[ Laughs ]

He went to St. Louis,

where there was another
Pullman porter operation.

He went through the same school
and got hired all over again.

♪♪

There's no Internet,
they're not checking on him,

and he starts running,
you know, the southern route

in a different
Pullman porter route.

♪♪

He had tremendous American
spirit of "start over again,

let's do it."

He preaches idealism and purity,
and sometimes he's...

is a little tricky over here,

getting things done
any way he can.

♪♪

Stewart: There was a
vast expanse in which

one could imagine
one's future was huge.

And then on top of that,
Oscar Micheaux

was always
a very observant person.

And so as he was
working the terrain

and probably doing a lot
of shucking and jiving

and the kind of, like,
performance that one had to do

to get good tips
from white passengers,

he was also listening to them,

and he was listening
to the conversations

that white businessmen were
having about the opportunities

out West to buy land.

And so he begins
to formulate his plans

for becoming a homesteader.

McGilligan: Land was cheap
on the roads,

but you had to get
the option of bidding

because you were drawn
in a lottery.

But if you did, you had a chance
if you had money,

and he knew that,
and so he took that chance.

[ Robert Glasper's "Afro Blue"
plays ]

♪♪

♪ Dream of a land
my soul is from ♪

♪ I hear the hand
stroke of a drum ♪

♪ Shades of delight ♪

♪ Cocoa hue ♪

♪ Rich as the night ♪

♪ Afro blue ♪

♪♪

♪♪

Willmott: Micheaux is really
unique in that sense.

I mean, he wasn't afraid to be
the only black person

in Gregory, South Dakota.

He wasn't afraid of that,

which a lot of black folks
at that time

would have been
very frightened about that.

I mean, this is a time
of lynching where black folks

are being lynched
all over the country.

Black life is not valued
very high.

♪♪

♪♪

Land figures extremely
prominently in his imagination

but in the life
of black people of the time,

because many in the South
were promised

their 40 acres and a mule
and virtually no one gets that.

♪♪

♪♪

Micheaux, again, saw something,
I think, different with that.

It was sort of running through
some of the political theory

and some of the ideology
of the time,

so I think land
is symbolically important,

but to him, it embodied
something more.

♪♪

He must have been quite a sight

to his neighbors
in South Dakota,

and I think at the core
was his work ethic.

I mean, even if he was going to

face some kind of
social discrimination,

the fact of the matter was that
he put the money together

to buy that land and he worked
that land every day.

Why, Mr. Baptiste,

I've been looking
for you all morning.

I'd begun to think
that you weren't coming.

I'm sorry, I intended
to be here much sooner,

but something held me up
and I couldn't make it.

I hope you'll pardon
the delay.

That's quite all right,
perfectly all right.

Ultimately, he was able to gain
the respect of his neighbors

because he demonstrated
in his efforts

that he really was someone

who wanted to make
this project work for him.

And I think the fact that
he was in South Dakota

and had that unique
experience out there

with his white neighbors,
that's an experience

that a lot of black folks
did not have at that time.

All agreed,
Mr. Baptiste.

He can vote at home
and work for you.

And I hope
he pleases you.

If he does not, you just tell me
and I'll attend to him.

Oh, that'll never
be necessary.

I try to get along
with everyone, Mr. Stewart,

and I'm sure that Bill
and I will make it all right.

Well, I'll be
running along now.

I'll look for the boy
in the morning.

Father,
dinner is ready.

Don't let Mr. Baptiste go yet.
Ask him to stay for dinner.

By all means.
I'd forgotten.

You must stay for dinner,
young man.

In the meanwhile, meet
my daughter, Miss Agnes,

Mr. Baptiste.

McGilligan: And he also had this
dream that he would share it

with what he called
"the one true woman."

He was always looking for
the one true woman in his life.

While he went off
in search of women

that he knew in New York,
Chicago,

St. Louis,
writing them letters,

seeing what they were like,
were they available,

would they like to meet
with him,

including his first wife,
that he married out of Chicago

that was disastrous with a
stillborn child on the Rosebud.

[ Wind blowing ]

♪♪

And the worst winter

of the several that he
had lived through came.

♪♪

Frigid snow, then rain
that turns to ice.

♪♪

And he was stuck
in his little shack

because you don't go farming.

He was all alone. He felt he was
at the end of his ropes.

♪♪

♪♪

And he had always
admired writers

like Jack London and novels
like "Martin Eden."

Jack London
could write "Martin Eden"

as an autobiographical novel,

that he was going through
this terrible physical struggle,

trying to live on the prairie,

that he, also, had been
spurned by women,

that he, too, was also alone

against forces
beyond his control.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

And he becomes not
Oscar Micheaux, the failed...

landowner of the Rosebud.

He becomes Oscar Micheaux
the successful novelist,

the black novelist
telling the true story

of Black American life
on the Rosebud.

London: He took his
farming experience,

his experiences
as a Pullman porter,

and he kind of translated
that onto the written page.

♪♪

Then he kind of took the means

to kind of self-publish,
as well --

self-publish and
self-distribute these books.

McGilligan: Then he goes to all
these neighbors who he's helped.

He'd go to the local bankers
and he'd say,

"You give me a little money,
you sign this,

I sell some books,
I give you some money back."

They all invest
in his life story.

He turns his first book

into what we guess
is some kind of bestseller.

Good morning, madam.

Having been a Pullman porter,

he knows all these places
in America, in his area.

He starts to travel, and he goes
to the black communities,

and sometimes
he's going door-to-door.

"My name is Oscar Micheaux.
I've written this book.

It's my life story."

I have just what you want
to be reading.

This is it.

A fine new novel
by a Negro author.

Going door-to-door
to sell the books.

I think it comes out of
that small-town experience

that he had because

I think it was in
that small-town experience

that he discovered that
you could rely on others

to help you
to move your art forward.

And you say it's
by a colored author?

What's his name?

I forgot to get
his name myself.

Um, here's his picture.
Maybe his name is under it.

He has an
intelligent face.

He really wanted to get
his message out

to the race as a whole.

And so what better way
than this new medium of cinema?

Not totally new, but new in
the hands of black artists.

♪♪

Cinema has,
I think he recognized,

the ability to mirror.

So when black audiences would
look at other black characters

on the screen,
which was rare at the time,

that could give them a different
kind of visual sense

of what they could be.

It's a medium
that allows someone

to reflect upon themselves,

their own identities
and their own possibilities.

♪♪

Peña: This is a little bit
before the American cinema

became sort of really
industrialized and corporate.

Still, in the 19-teens,

it was very much a
mom-and-pop operation.

There were a lot
of very small film companies.

There were few,
as they called them,

Negro film producers
that were feeling that,

you know, "This is
a new accessible technology.

We can make our own stories."

Stewart:
Noble and George Johnson,

who ran the Lincoln
Motion Picture Company,

made these really classy,
inspiring stories

focused on sort of
the middle and upper classes.

Peña: The two African-American
brothers,

George and Noble Johnson,

wanted to make a film
of Micheaux's third novel,

and they approached him
and tried to buy the rights,

but they couldn't come up
with enough money,

according to Micheaux.

They must have been like,
"Who is this guy?"

Like, coming from nowhere.

He's got this
self-published novel,

and he wants to dictate how
the film is going to be made.

I mean, they're telling him,
you know, maybe it can be two

or three reels,
and he's imagining,

no, it's more like seven
or eight reels,

and he has never made a film.

The idea is in
Oscar Micheaux's head,

"I don't want it
to be like a three-reel

or like Noble Johnson's,
and this is all a big movie."

♪♪

"I could do this,
and I don't need Noble Johnson."

♪♪

That's the kind of person
he was.

He just said,
"Oh, I'll make it."

♪♪

Prettyman: No one really
walks off the street

at that point in time
in the '20s and '30s

and says, "I'm going to
make a film," right?

You have to have
a kind of inroads

into that studio system,
largely.

♪♪

Kwei-Armah: I mean,
he would get on the phone

or he would write to people
that he knew,

to people that he had charmed.

And he said, "This is my vision.

By hard work alone,
I shall produce this work."

And people bought
into that vision.

♪♪

Willmott: One of the things
I've always loved about Micheaux

was that independent spirit,
that thing of not letting

anything stop him
from being his artistic self.

He gets a little small crew
and drives out to Gregory,

South Dakota, to shoot a movie.

They've got the cameras
in the back seat.

You've got to remember, too,
there's no film school,

no one can teach you
how to do this.

I mean, you've got
to figure this out

pretty much on your own.

♪♪

♪♪

And I think all of that
comes from

that experience
in South Dakota.

You've got to go out
in the middle of nowhere.

You've got to plant your seed.

You've got to grow the crop,

and then you've got
to harvest it,

and then you've got to
take it to market.

I mean, he does
all of that with film.

♪♪

[ Applause ]

♪♪

♪♪

Micheaux is like that guy
who's walking down the street

and he's playing the drum,
playing the horns,

playing the keyboard,
and he's doing it.

It was sort of crowd filmmaking,
that the people

that are around you
become a part of your practice,

a part of the process.

And that's a very kind of
storied practice

in black filmmaking, that you
find people around you

to fund your film,
to make your film,

to help you distribute,
to travel with you.

I mean, so it is, again,
a community-based model.

That's why he's the patron saint
of black filmmakers,

because he's like the ultimate
independent filmmaker.

[ Gunshot ]

♪♪

♪♪

McGilligan: Micheaux was a big
motion-picture fan,

but he didn't love
everything he saw.

He hated "Birth of a Nation."

♪♪

"Birth of a Nation"
was a real cultural phenomenon.

There had never been a film in
the history of the United States

that had had
that kind of impact.

More than any other single work,
"Birth of a Nation"

transformed American cinema
into the American film industry.

Griffith, in his own right,
creates the language of film.

He's the first filmmaker

actually to use
the juxtaposition

of close-ups and long shots
and master shots and cutaways,

you know,
in simultaneous action.

♪♪

♪♪

But he does it in the service
of what I call

a science-fiction film.

♪♪

Science-fiction films show
the fears of the time.

[ Gunshot ]

♪♪

♪♪

"Birth of a Nation"
was such a horrendous film

for black folks in America,

and it led to lynchings

that led to the rebirth
of the Klan.

♪♪

♪♪

And so he tries to respond to
that film the best way he can.

♪♪

London: "Within Our Gates"
was a film

that kind of tried
to celebrate Black Americans,

especially
the black middle class,

and I think that really kind of
turned the narrative

of "The Birth of a Nation"
on its head.

♪♪

Asante: The idea that we could
be good, bad, mad, angry --

we could be
all kinds of things --

it's a direct response to
the framing of African-Americans

in "Birth of a Nation."

♪♪

It's a direct answer, which is,
"That's not who we are.

This is who we are."

"The Birth of a Nation"
features the coming together

of the white north
and the white south

through romantic relationship.

And Micheaux does the same thing
but with black characters.

A black woman from the South

has a variety of suitors
to choose from,

but her relationship
with a doctor from the North

is one way that Micheaux
is demonstrating the kind of

healing of the black community
across regional divides

and a creation
of a black uplift marriage

that's going to disprove all of
the things about black people

that "The Birth of a Nation"
is suggesting.

♪♪

He's speaking to the future
of the race,

and that is really emphatic.

It doesn't always make
for the most...

kind of like escapist
viewing experience.

Instead, it's like he's holding
a kind of magnifying glass

to American race relations and
really making you look at things

that you had not appreciated
with the naked eye.

♪♪

♪♪

Oscar Micheaux, in 1920,
in doing that film,

getting that onto
American movie screens,

having the guts to go out
and do that

and show what he thought
was the truth of America

is so far out on the envelope,

it's almost beyond the realm
of what's actually possible,

I think, of that time period.

Audiences were
completely stunned.

I was stunned when I saw it
60 years later.

♪♪

♪♪

And so we immediately,
as a band at that time,

began to make a record about
this African-American filmmaker.

We started spending
a lot of time with Oscar

and all these films,
and the music was like --

[Exhales sharply] --
you know.

It was so compelling that it
came out very rapidly.

♪♪

♪♪

Peña: I think one can see,
especially,

the flashback
in "Within Our Gates"

as a kind of response
to Griffith,

but in a certain way,
to a certain kind of racism

that was very --

unfortunately very present
in the United States.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

He was very much wanting
to speak back to

a false narrative,
a dishonest narrative

that Griffith propagates
in his film.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

And very much, also, wanting
to create some space

for black people
to tell their version

of what often happens,
for instance, with a lynching --

that there is often
no crime, right?

He wanted to make sure
that those things were clear.

♪♪

♪♪

"Birth of a Nation"
makes lynching of black folks

a positive thing.

And the fact that Micheaux takes
those kind of counter-images

that he constructs himself

and targets them directly back
at "Birth of a Nation"

is a really, really powerful
thing at the time.

♪♪

♪♪

When they showed the mob
attack the young boy...

♪♪

and they hang his parents,
those kind of images...

you know,
you've got to understand,

those were very shocking
at that time.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

In Micheaux's films,
they're not documentary footage,

but they're
documentary elements.

These are things
that are happening in society

and to the black community.

And he takes those things and
he weaves them within the story.

♪♪

"Within Our Gates" is
kind of an example of that.

And Spike does that. You know,
I do that with my films.

Obviously, he didn't do it
the way we did it

in "BlacKkKlansman"
or "5 Bloods."

But in essence,
it's the same kind of idea.

And I think Micheaux
was one of the first people

to really do that
on a major scale.

I think we can
get our head around,

in 1919, knowing, you know,
we're in Jim Crow era.

We're in times
of mass discrimination

and segregated America.

♪ Swing low ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Swing low ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪♪

I think what you have to
understand about American racism

is that it was very much built
around the idea of segregation.

That is my school, your school,
my bathroom, your bathroom.

Segregation was about space,

and as long as you stayed
in your space,

you could do a fair amount.

♪♪

Whether it be food, shelter,
clothing, entertainment --

all these things that we said,
"Well, we know what we like.

We don't see this for us.

We're going to see
if we can do for self."

♪ Swing low ♪

♪ Sweet chariot, yes ♪

♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪

So, segregation was isolating,

it was restrictive,
it was dangerous, it was scary.

There were
tremendous limitations.

But segregation was also,
in many spaces, safety

and comfort and familiarity.

♪♪

All of the black leaders
and artists and figures

in history
during this period,

they found a way to use
segregation to their advantage,

and Micheaux is one of
the best examples of that.

♪♪

African-Americans were able
to develop, within those spaces,

their own institutions.

So since they had
their own theater,

they had their own literature,
they had their own churches,

why not have their own cinema?

So in a way,
that's where Micheaux fits in.

♪♪

Ladies and gentlemen,
we're about to open

the primetime revue.

All right, boys,
hit it!

♪♪

Willmott: Hollywood, for the
most part, is not making,

not telling our story.

They're not making black films.

And so Micheaux has kind of
the corner on the market

in that sense.

He uses that to his advantage.

And so it was kind of
the best of times

and the worst of times.

For the Negro people
at the time, to see oneself

or a vision of oneself
that is moving and animated

and giving off life,

you know what I mean,
was a phenomenon.

For me, a movie doesn't
become a movie

until it meets an audience,

and that's something
that Oscar Micheaux

knew and understood.

He was making films
about subjects and issues

that mattered to black people
and that mattered, full stop.

[ "The Revolution Will Not
Be Televised" plays ]

♪♪

Scott-Heron: You will not be
able to stay home, brother.

♪♪

You will not be able to plug in,
turn on, and cop out.

You will not be able
to lose yourself on skag

and skip out for beer
during commercials

because the revolution
will not be televised.

He was showing history from the
African-American point of view,

and his films are very
powerful and modern

in terms of their ideas,
in terms of their style,

and in terms
of their budgetary gloss.

♪♪

Peña: Have read that he
wasn't a good filmmaker.

I, on the contrary,
and many others think that's

because he was a kind of
almost experimental filmmaker,

that he was really somebody
who played with form

in a very interesting way.

♪♪

[ Woman vocalizing ]

♪♪

He took what he could borrow
from things that he likes,

so you see scenes
in "Body and Soul"

that are very
German expressionist.

Very, very striking, especially
when he's doing scenes

with nature and wind storms,
which he loved wind.

♪♪

♪♪

So he was very sophisticated,

sometimes in the lighting
and in the composition.

♪♪

London: The film that
strikes me the most

from Oscar Micheaux's
filmography

is "Body and Soul."

I'm a fan of Paul Robeson,
and so to see an early work

by Micheaux of
a young Paul Robeson

is incredible to me.

Oh, Micheaux was
so good at casting!

He was so good
at discovering people.

Paul Robeson -- he was an
all-American football player.

He had graduated
from law school.

He was already known
as a serious actor.

This is about 1923, '24.

Paul Robeson doesn't show up
in other motion pictures

until the early 1930s.

It's Oscar Micheaux
who says, "Paul Robeson.

He's amazing."

♪♪

Prettyman: In "Body and Soul,"
we have Paul Robeson

playing these two twins.

And people have different
readings of the film,

but for me,
"Body and Soul" represents

people who would prey
on other black people.

♪♪

That was one of the targets
that you see

in almost all of his movies

is he takes his shot
at these jackleg preachers.

♪♪

Jackleg preachers
were preachers

that were basically con men --

you know, preachers
that took folks' money --

innocent folks' money --

and kind of used religion
to really manipulate them

and to really steal
from them ultimately.

♪♪

♪♪

Micheaux was never afraid
to sort of --

what could you say?

As one newspaper accused him,

"wash the dirty linen
of the community in public."

Prettyman: It's an important
sort of commentary

of black cultural
and religious life

when some in the black community
wanted him to.

They wanted a kind of pristine
treatment of black life,

and he didn't want to do that.

He wanted to show
some of the complexity

and some of the
contradictions and, again,

ways in which they might
have been exploiting each other,

pastors and preachers
exploiting their own people.

Willmott: He wasn't, like,
anti-God or anti-religion.

I think he was
a man of faith, actually,

but he saw religion as a tool

being used against
black folks in many ways.

And it very much kind of,
you know --

talking about the televangelist
kind of preachers

that will come later on
in American life.

♪♪

♪♪

The more difficult part

was really
the distribution and exhibition

because those sectors were
very quickly taken over

by the big Hollywood studios.

♪♪

[ Train whistle blows ]

♪♪

[ Birds chirping ]

[ Horn honks ]

♪♪

The idea that someone
will say, "Here.

Here's what I'm going to do.

I'm also going to get on
the train and bring my movies

to the movie theaters
and play them.

I'm going to make sure
that they're seen.

I'm not going to wait
on anybody else to do it.

I'm simply going to do it."

Now the amount of person hours
that must have taken

to literally have your film
under your arm

and turn up and play it.

♪♪

He never gets a real great
distribution deal.

He did it all those years
pretty much on his own.

But it was really great
how he did it

because he connected
with black churches.

He connected
with black organizations.

He created a black network
of movie theaters.

[ Jazz standard plays ]

♪♪

♪ Down South,
the banjos cry, too ♪

♪ Deep blues,
the darkest sky, too ♪

♪ When the moonbeam's
on the bayou ♪

♪ That's how rhythm was born ♪

Every major city that had
an African-American community,

there would be cinemas there,

and Micheaux would
sort of strike deals

with the owners
of these movie theaters

to have their films play
at certain times of the week.

♪♪

Willmott: Most of them were
white movie theaters

that would allow blacks
to come in after hours,

They called it midnight rambles,
where black folks could come in

oftentimes around
10:00 or 11:00,

maybe even midnight
to show a film,

and Micheaux was there,
and black audiences are hungry

to see themselves
on the screen.

♪♪

♪♪

And not only was he sort of
selling his films

and showing his films himself,

traveling to this network
of black theaters,

but while he was
at the theaters,

talking to the managers
about what cut he would get

from the box office
and so forth,

he was also making deals
to fund his next films.

♪♪

Peña: He would spend maybe
a couple of weeks

in New York, two or three weeks,

then he would take
the same print

and then go to Philadelphia,
and from Philadelphia,

maybe go to Pittsburgh,
and from Pittsburgh,

go to Washington -- very often
carrying the prints themselves,

you know, from place to place.

And eventually, they would hit

just about every
African-American community.

♪♪

He would travel and take
the film cans --

film prints himself
to each location,

sometimes even disguising
the name of the film

to kind of evade the censors
and avoid them cutting up

his original prints.

If Doctor Jalop
should augur,

then go see
Captain Renfrew.

You know where
he lives --

the big house
on the hill.

♪♪

Willmott: He's responding to
the suffering of black folks

in the nation at the time.

And so the things he wanted
to show on film

connected specifically
to those issues.

My mother's sick,
Doctor.

Who is it?

She's been taken
suddenly with --

The fat Negress who lives
in the house on 12th Street.

Isn't she?

No, Caroline Sanders owes me
a $5 doctor bill already.

I'm tired of you Negroes
running up doctor bills

nobody can collect.

Never have any money.

"Within Our Gates," which we
spoke about before, was banned,

I believe in Chicago and maybe
in a couple of other places.

Why? Well, because of course,
it showed a lynching.

♪♪

All of those things he knew
that he wanted to do were things

that the black audiences
really wanted to see.

He knew that hunger for telling
the real black experience.

He felt that the ways in which
he was being censored,

these were not just affronts
to his artistic vision,

but they were
politically motivated.

These were attempts to try
to keep black people

from really feeling

and seeing the weight
of the political messages

that he was
including in his films.

And he was resisting that
over and over and over again.

♪♪

♪♪

There were some cases in which
he would take the seal

that he got for another film
and put it on a new film

so that it seemed like
that one had passed

the censor board
when really it hadn't.

He was slapped
on the wrist for that.

He made around 40 films.

He did this during a time
when African-Americans

were restricted from so many
different types of activities.

♪♪

And it is like an
archeological dig,

I reference often.

You know, I'd love to sit
with all of them.

I'd wish the miracle that
rather than 80 percent

of them are un-found, that maybe
it was the other way 'round --

that 80 percent
of them will be found.

Willmott: Their job was
to get the movie made,

try to get it out there
best you can,

try to find the audience,
maybe make your money back,

maybe make some money
if you were lucky.

It wasn't
preserving those films.

♪♪

[ Speaking Italian ]

♪♪

[ Jazz standard plays ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Oh, Mr. Hawkins,
I see you're here.

Uh, let me take your
hat and cane.

♪♪

♪♪

You know, Harlem is the
capital of Black America.

And at that time,
it was the most exciting place

for a black person
to be in the country.

♪ Chicago's all right,
it's got Wrigley Field ♪

♪ and Soldier's Field
and Marshall Field ♪

♪ And it's on a nice lake ♪

♪ But it hasn't got the hansoms
in the park ♪

♪ It hasn't got a skyline
after dark ♪

♪ That's why
New York's my home ♪

♪ Never let me leave it ♪

♪ New York's
my home sweet home ♪

Micheaux probably moved
to New York because Harlem

had become the biggest
black belt in America.

♪♪

Enjoyable to live

but also is a place where he
could raise money,

meet people.

It allowed him to really
connect to a black audience

and to the black community
in a way he'd never had before.

[ Up-tempo jazz music playing ]

♪♪

♪♪

Intellectually, artistically,
politically,

fires were being set.

Inspirations were being
propelled into the mainstream,

into the consciousness
of your fellow man and woman.

♪♪

So many amazing figures that
came out at that time

that formed
a kind of little nucleus,

which we call
the Harlem Renaissance.

So he would have been mixing
and mingling with

the cream of the crop of writers
and artists and painters

that were living in Harlem
both before,

after, and during
the Harlem Renaissance.

♪♪

♪♪

It was the only place
in the country like that.

And so he was surrounded
by people

trying to do the same thing
he was doing.

The thing that's that's
really unique about him

in Harlem, though,
is that no one else

is really able to make
independent films

the way he did in Harlem.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

♪♪

Peña: "Murder in Harlem" --
it's another film

that has last-minute surprises

and people popping out
of the shadows.

♪♪

I've been in love with you
for a long time.

Come on, little one.
Give me a kiss.

♪♪

And there's
Oscar Micheaux, playing

a little role in the movie.

Another one.

"That tall Negro
did this.

He will try to lay it
on the night."

Big and charming.

"Tall Negro."

"He will try to lay it
on the night."

What can it mean?

He's like a P.T. Barnum
with his presence.

I'm tall.
But why, they...

No, no. They couldn't be
trying to lay this on me.

I don't know anything about it,
except finding a body.

I am a --

Come, we're
taking you with us.

Come on.

And there's
Oscar Micheaux's wife.

A very, very important person.

Alice B. Russell.

♪♪

Very refined, very quiet,
in the background,

monitoring and
making sure things

are going according to plan.

No need pretending
you don't hear me,

'cause I'm gonna
fix you anyhow.

[ Dramatic music plays ]

♪♪

♪♪

It's kind of influenced
by this actual murder

that took place in the South

that had led to the lynching
of a Jewish person.

He took that story
and kind of moves it around

and makes it about,
really, the black community.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Clock chiming ]

There's a wonderful moment in
the film that I love very much,

which is, if you recall,

it starts off with, like, an
African-American night watchman.

[ Whimsical music plays ]

♪♪

And he's going around with
his flashlight and whatever.

♪♪

Suddenly,
the flashlight hits upon

the dead body of a woman.

♪♪

♪♪

And suddenly, he does something
which is so amazing.

He just looks at the camera,

and he looks at the camera
for like maybe 10 seconds,

almost as if to say,
"Oh, my God.

I'm African-American.
She's white.

I'm going to get in trouble."

[ Frantic music plays ]

♪♪

♪♪

It's a very modern film
in that sense,

that he's responding

to what's happening
right at that moment.

And people would -- everybody
still does that.

When something big happens
in the news,

people immediately
try to capitalize on that

and make a film that
directly speaks to that.

And that's what
Micheaux was trying to do.

[ Singing operatically ]

♪♪

Sound becomes incorporated
into filmmaking in 1927.

♪♪

This was a challenge
for many filmmakers,

and it was a huge challenge
for independent filmmakers

and certainly black
independent filmmakers.

Micheaux was the only one
who could make the transition

from silent filmmaking
to sound filmmaking

because he was able
to talk up the financing

to be able to do it.

♪♪

♪♪

Micheaux's 1931 film
"The Exile" is the first

black independent sound film.

♪♪

I kind of think they're all
the same in many ways, you know?

That the novels kind of become
the films in some ways.

A lot of the themes
of the novels

end up being in his films.

♪♪

McGilligan: Based on his
second-to-last novel

called "The Wind from Nowhere,"

which is a rewrite
of his first novel

and his third novel -- again,
his life story on the Rosebud.

Morning, Miss.
My name is Baptiste.

I'm calling to see
a Mr. Stewart

about hiring his boy.

Is he in?

Yes.
Will you come in?

Thanks.

♪♪

He was always
interested in race

in terms of kind of interested

in interracial relationships --
love relationships.

Father,
dinner is ready.

Don't let Mr. Baptiste go yet.
Ask him to stay for dinner.

By all means.
I'd forgotten.

You must stay for dinner,
young man.

That's a common kind of theme
in a lot of his stories.

And I think, you know,

people kind of speculate
that he might have had

a relationship
out there in Gregory.

♪♪

Well, he had a personal
experience on the Rosebud

that deeply affected him.

Now, he was very
conscious of laws

that forbade white women
to marry black men

or black women
to marry white men.

And he finds himself, one day,
getting attracted to someone

whose name we can't be sure of.

We know she exists because
he wrote about her many times.

She was probably Scottish,

the daughter
of another settler,

blonde, white.

Sometimes I hardly know
whether I'm awake

or dreaming this.

I only know
that I'm happy.

Very happy.

Although I've
just met you, dear,

you've been in my heart
for years and years.

At some point,
he's alone with her,

and they fall into each other's
arms and probably make love.

You are the first one
I have ever loved.

Oh, my darling.

♪♪

Because he's not a prude --
he's not a prudish guy,

and he was very
attracted to her.

And this caused him
no end of heartbreak

because he felt
he couldn't marry her

because it was against the law.

♪♪

♪♪

Interracial relationship
was an important issue

for Micheaux,
as it is still today,

because it's kind of
that final barrier in many ways,

you know, when interracial
relationships are --

when people have to, in a sense,

accept someone of another race
in their family.

The idea I think Micheaux had

is if you can break
that barrier down in some ways,

everything racially
moves forward.

Kiss me.

♪♪

We know that he
also dealt with some

controversial subject matters
like interracial marriage.

But specifically, I think
his treatment of women

is really interesting.

He was telling stories
in the way that we should.

We should give women characters,
obviously, dimension.

We need to give
black characters dimension.

And we should
offer them complexity.

You know, that's one of
the things that I'm always

really grateful to him for.

Psst!

Sissy!

Sissy!

And I often have an issue
with the phrase, you know,

one is "ahead of their time."

I think Oscar Micheaux was
right where he needed to be

in terms of the way
he told his stories.

Moreover, it really is

and was society
that was behind the times.

Hello, Mr. Martin.
Come right in.

Hello, Bev.
How are you?

Fine, Gary.
How are you?

Oh, just so-so.

you tell me it is.

It isn't worthwhile. I'm only
going to stay a few minutes.

You can at least
sit down.

Well, thank you.

You know,
I'm casting a picture.

And I want a girl to play
[Indistinct].

Just a touch of life
in one of his Harlem places,

you understand?

I think if you were to say
that Oscar Micheaux

was a silent filmmaker
who never really comfortably

transitioned to sound,
you would not be far off.

♪♪

If you look at his silent films
the ones that we have --

such as "Within Our Gates,"
"Symbol of the Unconquered,"

"Body and Soul" --
they're very fluid,

you know,
and they're very inventive,

and he feels really
at home with it.

♪♪

The transition to sound
was really dramatic.

The fact that you couldn't
move the camera

with the same kind of freedom.

You wished to see me?

Pardon me,
but this is...?

Ida Morton,
thank you.

And that there was a kind of
eloquence to silent film,

the nuances of acting,
instead of having to speak up.

Gary Martin.

The motion-picture
producer?

Well, something
like that, I guess.

Oh, I'm delighted!
Glad! Everything!

You know, these early
sound films,

people are really loud
and the dialogue seems corny.

Oh, Mr. Martin, whatever can you
wish to speak with me about?

Pictures --
motion pictures.

How would you like
to work in one?

Oh, how would I like to go
to Heaven without dying?

I think it really paralyzed
Micheaux a little bit, formally.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Speaking Italian ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I think you can draw
a direct line

from an Oscar Micheaux
to a Spike Lee

to a Sam Pollard
to a Shaka King.

And so for young filmmakers,
this is an incredible story

that you can
draw inspiration from.

So absolutely,
every black filmmaker

has Oscar Micheaux to thank
for opening the door.

♪♪

Asante: I'm working in
development on a project now

that is set exactly
in the period

that Oscar began making films,

and his work is an important
kind of document

and an important element
of research for me,

to see the world
through the eyes

of a black man at the time,

as opposed to the framing
that African-Americans

were given at the time
on screen,

which was, outside of Oscar,

always through
white people, really.

The winner is
Sidney Poitier.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Announcer: Mr. Poitier
is the first Negro

to win such a high award,

and the announcement is received
warmly by the audience.

[ Applause ]

It is a long journey
to this moment.

I am naturally indebted
to countless numbers of people.

For all of them, oh, I should
say a very special thank you.

[ Applause ]

♪♪

Peña: As America began to
finally move somewhat away

from the sort
of segregationist regime

that it was and Hollywood
began to employ people

like Harry Belafonte
and Sidney Poitier

and other very fine
African-American actors --

not only employ them but
to give them dignified roles.

African-American audiences,
as well as others,

flocked to these movies and were
very supportive of the them.

♪♪

The Civil Rights movement
and everything,

looking toward this new
amazing opportunity

that's happening and this new,
exciting success

that black folks
are having on the big screen,

it makes Micheaux
fade away and disappear.

♪♪

Stewart: He was still
pretty much saying

the same kinds of things that
he was saying in 1919, 1920,

about lifting yourself
up by the bootstraps,

not necessarily engaged
in a more nuanced critique

of white systems of oppression.

♪♪

Willmott:
But it's interesting because

it's also the Civil Rights
movement that rediscover him.

People start to want
to honor black history,

and people want to know
kind of where we came from.

And when people started
to look back,

one of the first people
they found in a film was,

of course, Oscar Micheaux.

♪♪

McGilligan:
1951, he was 67 years old.

Everybody who saw him
in his final years

said he was disheartened,
even bitter,

and nearly broke.

♪ I did not become
someone different ♪

♪ That I did not want to be ♪

♪ But I'm new here ♪

♪ Will you show me around? ♪

♪ No matter how far
wrong you've gone ♪

♪ You can always turn around ♪

McGilligan: We don't know why he
was in Charlotte, where he died.

Knowing Micheaux,
even if he was dying,

he was probably selling,
you know, his books.

But it's one of many
mysteries about him.

There are mysteries that remain
to be discovered about him,

and I think that's
for the next generation.

♪♪

♪♪

Okay, Oscar.

All right.

♪♪

I'm Bernice Gray.

I'm a proud cousin
of Oscar Micheaux.

All right.

Now.

Pastor: You're not perfect,
but you're usable.

♪♪

I may be favored,
but I got my flaws.

♪ Mm, mm, mm ♪

♪ Mm, mm ♪

♪♪

♪ Mm, mm, mm ♪

♪ Mm, mm ♪

McGilligan: And Metropolis
is such a podunk today.

It has lost its cachet

as an important little place
in southern Illinois,

that they were desperate
to create some image

for themselves.

And they decided to declare
themselves the home of Superman.

♪ Mm, hmm, hmm, mm ♪

It's typical
United States of America.

They will salute fictional
heroes like Superman

or Rocky in Philadelphia,

based on the film,
as opposed to the real people,

especially the real black people
who have lived there.

♪♪

Oscar Micheaux is
the real Superman

because he didn't allow
kryptonite to stop him.

He didn't allow anything
to stop him.

And they threw everything
they had at him,

and he still was able
to get the job done.

♪♪

The first time I saw
Oscar Micheaux,

I was in high school.

I was struck
by his direct attitude,

and why was
the attitude important?

Because the attitude is
contrary to the stereotype.

He was great before,
but there were barriers to him.

He would be great today.

♪♪

In all fairness,
you have to fight for history.

You just can't say history
is going to happen.

You have to fight for it
and fight for the memory

because past is past
no matter what.

So you've got to fight
for the remembrance of the past.

♪ Your local superhero
from the hood ♪

♪ Iron Man Stark's
got the good ♪

♪ Not that good-good like Snoop,
I bulletproofed the Coop ♪

♪ Polished up the suit
and gathered the troops ♪

♪ Got a brand new ray gun ♪

♪ Me and DOOM heading
down to the range ♪

♪ To shoot in the matrix ♪

♪ Catch bullets with
my hands and teeth ♪

♪ I break faces ♪

♪ Wild car chases,
don of all ages ♪

♪ I saved the world,
that's fucking history pages ♪

♪ My Wu crescent shines
in the sky at night ♪

♪ Watch how my eagle on my wrist
take off into flight ♪

♪ All my might,
white glass teeth that write ♪

♪ Ain't a bird or a plane,
it's a ghost on the mic ♪

♪ Two hammers and
a diamond-blade sword ♪

♪ Thicker than the Ford F-150,
niggas couldn't lift me ♪

♪ As if, stance mad stiff ♪

♪ Metal Face DOOM,
beware, he bear gifts ♪

♪ Cab for the shift,
overwork, overtime ♪

♪ Jerk, you been warned,
go for mine ♪

♪ In the dance hall,
play the wall like handball ♪

♪ Till his pants fall,
brawl till last call ♪

♪ Loose cannon, squeeze drip ♪

♪ Off to rip this one for
the Gipper, get gypped ♪

♪ That nig, ya dig?
Don't tip the strippers ♪

♪ Foamposite mask,
matching slippers ♪

♪ Yo, where's Starks?
Backpack of ammo ♪

♪ Warriors said,
"Let your flags blow," camo ♪

♪ These dudes is toys
like Wham-O ♪

♪ Damn though, chip paint
driving on the gravel ♪

♪ With the Lambo ♪

♪ Blam-o ♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪