Collectors’ Contributions to Archiving Early Black Film

Film historians often mourn the large number of early silent and early black films that have been lost, destroyed, or gone missing. Given the passage of time, the limited number of films printed, inadequate storage, deaths, bankruptcies, and the evolution of audiences’ movie watching preferences, we should instead be celebrating the miracle of how much early film does exist. No magic was involved but rather the sweat, passion, research, and dogged hunting of a few dedicated film collectors who saved the treasures we have today. That they placed their gems in archives for preservation and future study speaks loudly to their primary mission, and their love of the medium.

Even though I was its first archivist, and left the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum as the Director of Collections, I never had the opportunity to meet the woman whose collection constantly astounded me. However, through my work there, I have been afforded historic opportunities to meet and speak with the keepers of the works and stories of early African American filmmakers. For this article, I was able to talk to Mayme A. Clayton’s son, Lloyd Clayton;¹ interview my friend and mentor Pearl Bowser² and also my new acquaintance Henry T. Sampson Jr.,³ who was clearly moved that others are continuing with the work of following scholarship of early black film. He is “depending on us to find new stories in the old films.”

Short History of Early Black Films: Stories about Us, by Us

Motion pictures have always been an intimate expression of how filmmakers see themselves and the world around them. In the early years of moving pictures, it was no small feat for African Americans to gain access to cameras, afford film stock, and orchestrate processing to capture their observations with a unique worldview. If not for the search and rescue by a few dedicated scholars and collectors, this history of early black films would have wasted away to ashy dust in forgotten vaults, closets, and basements. Thankfully, this is not the case, and we can celebrate the contributions of collectors such as Dr. Mayme A. Clayton (August 4, 1923–October 13, 2006), Pearl Bowser, and Dr. Henry T. Sampson Jr.

Moving images by and about African Americans became known as “race movies.” The term may derive from “race man” or “race woman,” which was a term of pride in describing successes of blacks. Photographers were among the first African Americans to take up the art of motion pictures. Addison N. Scurlock, Arthur Laidler Macbeth, and Jennie and Ernest Toussaint Welcome were well-known photographers who used motion pictures to document their communities. While only fragments of the films these individuals created still exist, descriptive accounts in newspapers tell us what they filmed. Around 1896, the public was treated to “actualities,” many filmed and displayed by EDISON/ARMAT VITASCOPE, in New York, and later other venues around the country and world. Viewers were treated to titles including: The Barber Shop, Boxing Match, Butterfly Dance, Serpentine Dance, Umbrella Dance, View of Venice with Gondolas, and Walton and Slavin (Burlesque Boxers). These short glimpses allowed Americans of all social strata to imagine adventures they may never have experienced.

The revelations when “race actualities” were released, beginning in 1910 by William Foster with The Pullman Porter (1910) and The Railroad Porter (1912) and Peter P. Jones with The Dawn of the Truth and Rebirth of a Nation (1915), were, as Bowser reflects, “attempts not just to address previous stereotypical images, but, an attempt to present the black reality.” Booker T. Washington hired George W. Broome to make a short film about the Tuskegee Institute, which was shown to potential New York investors in 1910 as an enticement for fund-raising. Of the companies producing race films, Oscar Micheaux was the only one to successfully transcend from silent films to talkies. From 1919 (The Homesteader) to 1948 (The Betrayal), Micheaux produced approximately forty--one films. Today, fewer than a dozen can be seen.

“Film,” Bowser says, “was thought of as a good business for black people to be involved in. Black people spent a...