Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only (26 page)

D. Ireland Thomas, a
Chicago Defender
columnist and former sales agent for George P. Johnson and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, was the first to air this gripe. “The advertising matter for this production has nothing to indicate that the feature is Colored, as the characters are very bright; in fact, almost white,” Thomas wrote. “The ‘All-Star Colored Cast' that is so noticeable with nearly every Race production is omitted on the cards and lithographs. Possibly Mr. Micheaux is relying on his name alone to tell the public that it is a Race production, or maybe he is after booking it in white theaters.”

The black press was hardly monolithic, and many columnists boosted race pictures. (“Supporting Micheaux and his wonderful talents would help us help ourselves,” is how one scribe put it.) Others went out of their way, it sometimes appeared, to knock them. Race pictures came in for ten times the criticism of Hollywood's demonstrably racist films in certain quarters, it seemed. Some reviewers brought out magnifying glasses and quibbles and axes to grind. Micheaux was the major symbol of an idea his detractors wanted to perfect.

This latest complaint about his work—that his stories were color-coded in favor of light-skinned “good” characters—was one of the most unfair. And it was a criticism peculiarly oblivious to his life's theme. Micheaux was far-sighted, in film after film, with attacks on any skin-tone or racial distinction as any pretext for injustice.

Indeed, Micheaux's films are full of examples of casting
against
color-type. William E. Fountaine, who played the hero in
The Dungeon,
was hardly “almost white.” Lawrence Chenault played heroes or villains, black or “white.” The dark-skinned Paul Robeson would represent both sides—good and evil—in the same Micheaux film,
Body and Soul.
Scholars today have struggled with this piercing accusation against Micheaux, but have concluded, almost unanimously, that the occasional Micheaux film that seems “color-coded” is hardly evidence of a consistent trait.

One fact worth noting is that Micheaux characteristically relied on leads who were already well-established in black show business—in an era when many producers favored lighter-skinned performers. Producers had an easier time booking “bright mulattos” into mixed-neighborhood theaters in many parts of the country. “If you were [inordinately] black you couldn't get any work,” remembered singer and actress Bee Freeman, who graced several Micheaux films in the 1930s. “A man could, if he could sing or dance, but not a woman. She had to be brown or light-skinned. They would take you to the window and look at your hair, and they would have you pull your dress up so they could see the color of your legs.”

A few prominent members of the black press had developed an almost love-hate relationship with Micheaux, sometimes rooting for him, sometimes lambasting him. Their attitude couldn't always be separated from their own conflicts of interest. Like other black reporters who wrote about race pictures, for example, D. Ireland Thomas on occasion took money from Micheaux and other race-picture producers, touting their films while helping to book them into theaters, including one that Thomas operated in Charleston, South Carolina.

When Thomas moved to Charleston late in 1922, taking over the Lincoln, the city's only black theater, he became a full-time exhibitor. But he continued writing his column, periodically sniping at Micheaux. And his new brand of criticism may have hurt even more. According to his 1955 obituary, Thomas “personally” edited the “race pictures” he booked into the Lincoln, “to eliminate racially inflammatory material.”

 

In July and August 1922, Micheaux was back in Virginia, shooting the remainder of
The Virgin of the Seminole
in the bosom of Roanoke. The film reunited Shingzie Howard and William E. Fountaine, this time in a Western of sorts, “built around a brave colored man who received $10,000 for aiding and abetting in the capture of a bandit,” according to the
Roanoke Times.
“He buys a ranch and settles down to enjoy life.”

Micheaux had been able to take more time with the scenario. And the mood of the story was more romantic than
The Dungeon,
the filming almost a lark. A local farm was turned into a cattle ranch, and the parks and streets of the city were momentarily filled with galloping dark-skinned
cowboys. “This production is a splendid one from every point of view,” opined the
Chicago Defender
when
The Virgin of Seminole
was released late in 1922. “The story is one of gripping interest and thrilling episodes from beginning to end.”

The earliest known photograph of Oscar Micheaux, about age thirty.

The Pullman Company record of porter “Oscar Michaux.” The reason for discharge given in the far right column: “Abstracting $5.00 from purse of lady pass[enger].”

Micheaux's homestead near Gregory, South Dakota, as re-created on the original site by members of the Gregory County Historical Society.

Rare photograph of the pioneering film director on the set of one of his earliest “race pictures,” from the Micheaux Film Corporation advertisement in the 1923
Simms' Blue Book and National Negro Business and Professional Directory
.

Charles Lucas as Jean Baptiste and Evelyn Preer as Orlean in Micheaux's first film,
The Homesteader
, produced in 1918 and released in 1919.

One traveling troupe of the Lafayette Players, circa 1924. From left: Andrew Bishop, Edward Thompson, unidentified actress, Charles “Daddy” Moore, two unidentified actors, Evelyn Preer (wearing hat), A.B. DeComathiere, and Susie Sutton. All also appeared in Micheaux films.

A scene from
Within Our Gates
: During the film's lengthy backstory, tattletale Efrem (E. G. Tatum) is lynched by the mob he has helped whip into a frenzy.

The heroine's family is lynched at the flashback's climax, a stark scene that upset censors, critics, and some exhibitors and moviegoers.

The advertising for Micheaux's fourth film,
The Symbol of the Unconquered
, featured his name in large type above the title, while promising customers the “annihilation” of “the insidious Ku Klux Klan.”

Micheaux prided himself on launching newcomers as stars, and for a time in the early 1920s the lovely and charming Shingzie Howard (seen here in a 1928 photograph from the
Baltimore Afro-American
) was a low-cost substitute for Evelyn Preer.

Paul Robeson played dual roles in
Body and Soul
,
but stirred the most excitement—and controversy—as a lying and murdering (false) preacher.

Robeson also played his own twin, the noble and hardworking brother who is romancing Julia Theresa Russell—another novice actress, and the sister of Micheaux's future wife, Alice B. Russell.