Book Review

Oscar Micheaux (1884–1951) was a prolific novelist and filmmaker, producing forty-three films and seven novels. He was a leader in the production of African American silent films, director of early black "talkies," and a strong supporter of Booker T. Washington's racial uplift policies. Known for his ballyhoo, he had a reputation for being an aggressive self-promoter. Some in the black press, however, referred to him as a "colored Judas." He was criticized for casting light-skinned actors, described as "light-brights," in leading roles and for portraying disreputable black characters. When he died on the road selling his books and films he was barely remembered, and he was ignored for the next forty years. In Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks (1973), Donald Bogle asserted that Mi?cheaux's films were "conventional melodramas" resembling the Hollywood B movies of the time. Joseph A. Young, in his book Black Novelist as White Racist (1989), condemned Micheaux's novels as "confederate romanticism" promoting "Negrophobia."	1
All this began to change in the early 1990s with the discovery of a Spanish version of Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920). The film's antilynching theme and its counter to D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) make it clear that Micheaux's work contained significant social commentary. Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence's Writing Himself into History and J. Ronald Green's Straight Lick bring new insights into Micheaux's filmography. While differing in approach, both books situate Micheaux within a social context.	2
Bowser and Spence concentrate on two main objectives. One is the examination of Micheaux's early films. The other is the analysis of his cultural and social influences. They locate Micheaux's work as a product of his world (circa 1900 to 1925) and buttress their arguments by attending to the newspapers, archives, and documents dealing with the production of Micheaux's three extant silent films: Within Our Gates, Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), and Body and Soul (1925). Moreover, they examine the aims and objectives of African American audiences who came to see silent films.	3
The book is divided into three sections. The first considers how Micheaux "wrote himself into history." Bowser and Spence draw upon his self-image in the context of larger social questions. Micheaux's narratives were autobiographical, reflecting his need to promote social advancement and his desire to confront the issues of race, miscegenation, and morality. He was a self-proclaimed self-starter, and his protagonists exemplified his emphasis on initiative and ingenuity. The second section explores his entrepreneurial practices. They reveal how historical circumstances not only influenced his films but also helped define Micheaux's struggle to secure an audience. The final section examines the films themselves. Above all, Bowser and Spence are concerned with demonstrating that Micheaux, despite the fact that he was saddled with the "special burden of representation," ultimately expressed "an optimism for the Race."	4
Going to silent films was an "event" for African Americans. Bowser and Spence take pains to scrutinize this phenomenon. They pay particular attention to the reviews of the time and shed considerable new light on the critics Lester A. Walton, Romeo Dougherty, Theophilus Lewis, and Juli Jones. For Bowser and Spence, Micheaux's films and novels are a "resourceful reconfiguration" of the "conventions of melodrama" from an African American point of view. Free of jargon and hyperbole, theirs is a total history encompassing the artist, his audience, and his era. The same cannot entirely be said of J. Ronald Green's book.	. . .