Rather, each one fades to black for a beat and then comes up on the next sequence. The arrival of jazz is similarly pointed up, not by challenging old histories, but by coming from a fresh angle. 6 Only occasionally does the viewer sense something lost in this imaginative retelling. In any event, Hampton and Davis's strategy works. Part of this revisionism arises from feminism.
Blues singers are entirely women.
Zora Neale Hurston gets unaccustomed prominence. Dorothy West, perhaps because she lived so long, testifies to the Harlem Renaissance as an eyewitness. Even when Paul Robeson takes his accustomed place as the giant polymath brought crashing down by the dwarfs in the United States Senate, some of the most compelling testimony comes from his co-star in Othello, Uta Hagen. 8 Of all the aspects of African American culture before World War II, the most artfully handled is art itself. The sculptor Augusta Savage gets a generous segment focused on her school, made possible by footage that seems taken from the Harmon Foundation Collection.