/tmp/hithk.jpg The Locke – Du Bois Debate on Propaganda and Art – Hidden History of Hollywood

“Only the colored people themselves can determine their political, social and economic future.”

William Monroe Trotter

Prof. EA Kiss

This course surveys a hidden canon of African American film while also uncovers the roots of representational injustice in Hollywood and the secret, but cardinal role Woodrow Wilson played in the production and distribution of Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” that led to the rebirth of the KKK. Wilson’s policy of segregation was adapted by Hollywood as a self-censoring industry regulation of representation. Black people could only appear on screen as subservient and marginal characters, never as equals, partners or leaders. This industry code, Wilson’s legacy, has become second nature to Hollywood.

04/06

The Locke – Du Bois Debate on Propaganda and Art

Studio Guest

Gyula Gazdag

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Film

W.E.B. Du Bois museum vitrine; Alain Locke museum vitrine; Oscar Micheaux museum vitrine

Early Afro-American silent films

Classified X

Melvin Van Peebles

(1998)

Within Our Gates

Oscar Micheaux

(1920)

Body and Soul

Oscar Micheaux

(1925)

“The Criteria of Negro Art”

W.E.B. Du Bois

(1926)

“Art or Propaganda”

Alain Locke

(1928)