Birthright (1939) | Oscar Micheaux's Incomplete Film [CC]
Channel: Screen Prism
Date: 2024-02-12

BIRTHRIGHT is an American drama race film directed, co-produced and co-written by Oscar Micheaux and starring Carman Newsome. It is a talkie remake of Micheaux's 1924 silent film of the same name, which is now considered lost; both were adapted from white author T. S. Stribling's eponymous 1922 novel.

The movie is about a black Harvard graduate who returns to his small hometown in Tennessee to establish a school for black children similar to Tuskegee Institute or Hampton Institute, both historically black colleges. However he has to confront opposition from both white and black communities as well as face racism and discrimination.

The restoration of Birthright was derived from the only known surviving 35mm print, which is missing the first two of its nine reels – about 20 minutes. A description of the missing scenes has been compiled from a dialogue script submitted to the New York Censor Board, which is now preserved in the Motion Picture Scripts Collection of the New York State Archives.

Films such as this one, that used an all African-American cast and were shown specifically to African-American audiences, were known as "race films." Happy Black History Month!

Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an author, film writer, producer, and director, of more than 40 silent films and sound independent films from 1919—1948. He is regarded as the first major African American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race films (a genre of film produced in the U.S. between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences and featuring black casts), and the most successful African American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, less than half of Micheaux's films survive to this day. 

This film is in the public domain meaning it has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Corporations lobbied Congress to get U.S. copyright laws extended by 20 years, twice! Because of that, it allows published works to be under copyright for almost a century and corporations to squeeze every last ounce of profit from them even long after the profitability has past. It keeps people from enjoying art, which is the purpose of art.

#OscarMicheaux #BlackCinema #BlackMovies #BlackFilms  #publicdomainfilms