Birthright
Attend:
| Free with general admission |
*General museum admission is FREE for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.
USA/1938—directed by Oscar Micheaux | 73 min.
An idealistic Harvard graduate returns to the segregated South to establish a grade school, and encounters opposition from both the white and Black communities. Starring Ethel Moses and a bevy of moonlighting Cotton Club dancers, Birthright was an early, brutal critique of segregation and Jim Crow laws, and was criticized for its graphic depiction of institutionalized racism.
Micheaux responded to the criticism by publishing a declaration of his intentions as a filmmaker, reflecting the ideals of his lead character:
“I have always tried to make my photoplays present the truth, to lay before the race a cross section of its own life… It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights.”
USA/1938—directed by Oscar Micheaux | 73 min.
An idealistic Harvard graduate returns to the segregated South to establish a grade school, and encounters opposition from both the white and Black communities. Starring Ethel Moses and a bevy of moonlighting Cotton Club dancers, Birthright was an early, brutal critique of segregation and Jim Crow laws, and was criticized for its graphic depiction of institutionalized racism.
Micheaux responded to the criticism by publishing a declaration of his intentions as a filmmaker, reflecting the ideals of his lead character:
“I have always tried to make my photoplays present the truth, to lay before the race a cross section of its own life… It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights.”