Note: Report on the Conference on "The Image of the Negro in American Films," Ferris State College, Big Rapids, Michigan, August 17-23, 1969

NOTE Report on the Conference on "The Image of the Negro in American Films," Ferris State College, Big Rapids, Michigan, August 17-23, 1969 During the week of August 17-23 some sixty academicians, approximately half of them black, half of them white, met at Ferris State College in Big Rapids, Michigan for a conference on "The Image of the Negro in American Films." The conference was planned by Herbert L. Carson and John J. Fogarty of the humanities division of Ferris State College and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities· and the Ford Foundation; it began with a keynote address on Sunday evening by J. Saunders Redding, and concluded with an address on Friday evening by Miss Ruby Dee. In between these two addresses the conference viewed fourteen featurelength films plus a number of shorter ones. It was an education of a very· special sort to sit through film after film in which the experiences of black people in America were presented in ways which are largely distasteful and offensive to black audiences, and to the very actors involved in the portrayal. The point was dramatized again and again: black people in films tend to be stereotypes, and thus are presented in only a few predictable circumstances . Further, these circumstances are basically degrading. There are a few exceptions to the general treatment, but they are up to now clearly exceptions. As the conference drew toward its close, members of one of the small discussion groups formulated two resolutions for ratification by the whole conference, and a "black caucus" also presented an eight-point resolution. This group recommended that "instead of presenting the traditional negative black image, a positive and multifaceted black image which is more realistic and historically ac~urate be depicted" in American films. Throughout the eight suggested guidelines ran an emphasis on giving blacks control over the presentation of black images. "Nothing But a Man" was offered as a model; it is fair to say that most of those who voted would also have approved "A Raisin in the Sun" as a model. . . One further point emerged from the conference: the conference was the result of white initiative and planning. In the future one can probably expect that more and mo.re black colleges and universities will sponsor black studies conferences. CHAltLES AUGHTRY 428 ...