Race Films/Race Matters
Starting Conversations About Race in America
To appreciate where we are today in terms of racial relations and civil rights, we—as individuals, as a community, and as a nation—must have a better understanding of how, historically, we got here.
Race Films/Race Matters is an attempt to do just that: to use race films as a starting point for necessary, informative, and provocative conversations about race, racial tension, and racial discrimination in America today.
What are “race films”?
Produced from the 1910s until the early 1940s, race films were created largely by black film companies for black audiences. Unlike mainstream films, they starred black actors and emphasized black-oriented issues and themes.
Lecture + Film + Conversation
Race Films/Race Matters invites you to explore historic racial, social, and cultural dynamics through the unique lens of race films.
You can access the program series in various ways: by opting to listen to just one lecture and then viewing the corresponding film, or by enjoying the entire six-lecture/five-film program series. Either way, the experience will be enriching.
The insights and ideas that the lecturers offer will create a context for the various films, while the follow-up discussion questions provided on the website will encourage you, independently or through group discussion, to expand your own ideas about the significance of race and culture.
video lectures
RF/RM lectures feature select film experts and run between fifteen and thirty minutes in length. The presentations provide context for each film and identify the significant issues and themes that underlie it. Through these lectures, you will be directed to observe ideas such as racial ambition and “uplift”; caste divisions within the black community; barriers to black education; social stereotyping of black women; and lynching as a fear and terror tactic.
screenings of five “race films”
Race films were an important cinematic, social, and political development, especially during the silent film era. For black audiences, those films constituted a kind of separate cinema, which provided a unique perspective on—and often an unsparing look at—black life and racial concerns that mainstream studio pictures typically ignored, distorted, or misrepresented.
continuing conversations
After viewing the lecture or watching the film, you may wish to keep exploring ideas and continuing the conversation about race. To that end, discussion questions for each film have been provided at the end of each section. You can access them, at any time, on your own. You might also want to facilitate a more interactive dialogue on race films and race matters by creating your own community-based and issue-oriented virtual conversation group.
Introduction to Race Films
Before you watch any of the films in this series, consider viewing the introductory video lecture An Introduction to Race Films by Dr. Samantha Sheppard, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Cornell University.
This presentation outlines the development of race films, which were produced by black directors and actors largely for black audiences from the 1910s through the early 1940s. It further establishes a useful context for appreciating these films as unique and powerful voices of their time.
Series Films
Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates
(1920)
Richard E. Norman’s The Flying Ace
(1926)
The Colored Players’ The Scar of Shame
(1929)
The Emperor Jones starring Paul Robeson
(1933)
Spencer Williams’ The Blood of Jesus
(1941)
The Lecturers
Samantha N. Sheppard
An Introduction to Race Films
Charlene Regester
Within Our Gates
Barbara Tepa Lupack
The Flying Ace
Ken Fox
The Scar of Shame
Michael C. Reiff
The Emperor Jones
Cynthia Henderson
The Blood of Jesus
Black History & Culture Destinations in the Finger Lakes
Rochester
Ithaca
Auburn
Our Team
Barbara Tepa Lupack is the grant coordinator for the program series, Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race in America, sponsored in part by Humanities New York, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This is the third HNY grant she has coordinated for the Finger Lakes Film Trail, beginning with a Vision Grant in 2018 to launch the FLFT and an Action Grant in 2019 to assist in the implementation of the first full year of program events. From 2015 to 2018, she served as New York State Public Scholar through HNY, in which capacity she lectured on race films, on racial stereotypes, and on race filmmakers Richard E. Norman and Oscar Micheaux. She has also held a number of individual grants and awards, including a travel and research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Diana Riesman, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Wharton Studio Museum and creator of the Finger Lakes Film Trail, is closely and directly involved in all aspects of the Humanities New York grant planning and program implementation. She has led WSM’s partnership in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture, which includes the installation of a permanent exhibit on Ithaca’s role in early film history, and is spearheading efforts to develop the historic Wharton Studio building in partnership with the City of Ithaca and Friends of Stewart Park. She is a founding member and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Friends of Stewart Park, a nonprofit committed to the revitalization of Stewart Park, Ithaca’s main waterfront park, where the Wharton Studio building is located.
Mark Hartsuyker got his start in filmmaking while working as a projectionist at an art house cinema in La Jolla, California in his late teens. As a chiropractor, he became involved in ergonomic consulting, which led to producing films for companies large and small. Eventually, he used his newly acquired skills to help non-profits craft video media to convey their mission, find funding, and attract volunteers. Mark has worked with a variety of non-profits creating documentary-style promotionals and stop-motion animation. Mark’s video work, created under the name "Raccoon Recording Studio," can be found here.
Andrea Bruns leads creative design of the Finger Lakes Film Trail website and the Race Films/Race Matters web pages. She has worked in communication planning across the sciences and humanities, spanning the academic, nonprofit, and government sectors. She specialized in ecological communication as a website developer and program strategist for Shenandoah Audubon Society; the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, New York Field Office; and extension programs at Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science.
Thank you.
The Finger Lakes Film Trail is grateful to all the contributors to and supporters of the Race Films/Race Matters program series. In particular, the FLFT acknowledges the following individuals:
Humanities New York: Sara Ogger, Michael Washburn, Scarlett Rebman, and Joe Murphy, for support of the Finger Lakes Film Trail and encouragement of its programs, going back to the inception of the FLFT in 2018.
Travis Hyde Properties in Ithaca, NY, for its Sponsorship of Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race.
Kevin MacLeod, for the silent movie-period music clips of “Fig Leaf Times Two” and “Fun in a Bottle,” used in the openings and closings of the video presentations.
Cortland Gilliam, for his assistance with the videotaping of Dr. Charlene Regester’s presentation on Within Our Gates.
Elijah Wheat-Dardano, for his assistance to Mark Hartsuyker with the videotaping of Dr. Cynthia Henderson’s presentation on The Blood of Jesus.
uncommonplace, for the Race Films/Race Matters logo design.
Pat Longoria, Wharton Studio Museum board member, and Stephanie Hofner, George Eastman Museum, for their assistance with “Race-Related Sites in the FLFT Member Communities.”
A very special thank you to Amber Bertin, Archivist at the Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and to the Norman Studios Silent Film Museum in Jacksonville, Florida, and other museums and archives that have lent support to this project.
Race Films/Race Matters is made possible in part by an Action Grant from Humanities New York.
FLFT thanks Travis Hyde Properties in Ithaca, NY, for its Sponsorship of Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race.
The Finger Lakes Film Trail program series Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race in America is made possible by an Action Grant from Humanities New York, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Humanities New York has been a valued financial supporter of the Finger Lakes Film Trail since its inception in 2018.