Oscar Micheaux was a novelist and filmmaker who became known for showing multi-faceted, nuanced portrayals of Black characters in his literature and on film. He was born near Murphysboro, Illinois in 1884. He started his work life as a Pullman porter, but in 1904 he homesteaded 500 acres of land in South Dakota.
Micheaux the Novelist
During his time as a homesteader, he wrote and self-published his first three novels: The Conquest (1913), Forged Note (1915), and The Homesteader (1917). His first three novels were autobiographical in nature. They portrayed a young Black man’s life in white, rural South Dakota.
Micheaux sold his novels door-to-door to farmers. The financial success of his book led him to write six more novels about this period and region.
Micheaux the Filmmaker
D.W. Griffith’s racist film, Birth of a Nation, moved Micheaux to become a filmmaker. He wanted to portray nuanced, multi-faceted Black characters. This wasn’t evident in Birth of a Nation and in many Hollywood films.
Micheaux made his novel, The Homesteader, into a feature film which he wrote, produced, and directed. The Homesteader was the first African-American film that was written, produced, and directed by a Black person. The film grossed over $5,000, making it a commercial success.
Micheaux was focused on controlling the production and distribution of his films. He produced 44 films between 1919-1948 with majority Black casts. Most of these films were detective stories, and they appealed to post World War I, Black audiences who wanted to see themselves portrayed onscreen.
Sometimes Micheaux took on more complex topics in his movies. His 5th film entitled Within Our Gates, attacked Birth of a Nation. Micheaux’s films also took on controversial subjects like interracial romance, colorism, and corrupt clergy. His films were a refreshing contrast to Hollywood films because films in Hollywood portrayed Black people as lazy, ignorant, and sexually aggressive.
Even though white critics negatively critiqued his filmmaking skills, Black audiences loved his movies. Micheaux was the most successful Black writer, producer, and director in the United States until his death in 1951.
Hollywood posthumously acknowledged his achievements in 1987 when they gave him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1989, Oscar Micheaux was also posthumously given awards by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and by the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. In Gregory, South Dakota, they hold the annual Oscar Micheaux Film Festival, named in his honor.
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