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(2 January 1884, Metropolis, Illinois
- 25 March 1951, Charlotte, North Carolina)
 Oscar
Micheaux, 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.
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.
He again used autobiographical elements in The Exile, his first
feature film with sound, in which the central character leaves
Chicago to buy and operate a ranch in South Dakota. In 1924 he
introduced the moviegoing world to Paul Robeson in his film, Body
and Soul.
Given the times, his accomplishments in publishing and film are
extraordinary, including being the first African-American to produce
a film to be shown in "white" movie theaters. In his motion
pictures, he moved away from the "Negro" stereotypes being portrayed
in film at the time. Additionally, in his film Within Our Gates,
Micheaux attacked the racism depicted in D.W. Griffith's film, The
Birth of a Nation.
The Producers Guild of America called him "The most prolific black -
if not most prolific independent - filmmaker in American cinema."
Over his illustrious career, Oscar Micheaux wrote, produced and
directed forty-four feature-length films between 1919 and 1948 and
wrote seven novels, one of which was a national bestseller. |
