Within Our Gates

Join the conversation.

You may use these questions to help direct your discussion.

• How does the film set up, describe, and define race relations in the North and the South?

• There are numerous “markers” throughout the film (e.g., the clothing that Sylvia wears, the offices and the sitting rooms of the various homes that she visits). What insights do those visual symbols provide into Micheaux’s story?

• What does the school in Piney Woods tell us about the circumstances of black Southerners in the film?

• D. W. Griffith, in his racist epic The Birth of a Nation, spoke of certain blacks as “faithful souls,” whom he described as “devoted” and “domesticated” (as opposed to the rogue and renegade blacks whom he believed created dissension). Discuss the characters of Old Ned and Efrem in Within Our Gates. Are they examples of “faithful souls”?

• How does Micheaux criticize the press in Within Our Gates? In what ways does the press collude in the violence and the lynchings that occur in the film?

• Settings are an important and deliberate part of the film, especially as Micheaux transitions between scenes in the North and the South. Choose one setting, describe it, and analyze what it reveals about the larger story.

- Barbara Tepa Lupack