The first black sound film was “Melancholy Dame,” a comedy two reeler, starring Evelyn Preer, Roberta Hyson, Edward Thomspons, and Spencer Williamson. Edward Thompson and Evelyn Preer, a husband and wife comedy team in real life, and Spencer (Andy of Amos & Andy) Williams and Roberta Hyson are featured in this black comedy of errors. [...]
Stepin Fetchit was named Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry. Fetchit, an actor and comedian, and Carolynne Snowden played in the first on-screen black romance in the movie, “In Old Kentucky.” Fetchit was the first black actor to receive feature billing in movies, and the first black to appear in films with stars like Will [...]
Sam Lucas (Samuel Milady, 1940 – 1916) was the first black to play the title role in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” on film. He had been the first black man to play Uncle Tom on stage in 1878. Born in Washington, Ohio, Lucas performed with major minstrel troupes, wrote one of the most popular minstrel songs [...]
The Wooing and Wedding of a Coon is the earliest known American made film with an all-black cast. A derogatory one-reeler, the film presented undisguised mockery of a black couple. The first cinematic coon appeared in Wooing and Wedding of a Coon (1905), a stupendously racist portrayal of two dimwitted and stuttering buffoons. The coon caricature is [...]
The first appearance of Black people in film came in “Off to Bloomingdale Asylum in 1902. The slapstick comedy was made in France, and produced by George Melies. The black characters may have been played by white characters. “Off to Bloomingdale Asylum” (1901) features a carriage with a skeletal horse and black face painted minstrels [...]
The daughter of freed slaves, she began her career in entertainment touring the east coast with various theatrical companies and moved to California to become a member of the fledgling film community. She became known as a character actress, appeared in high profile films such as Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), and [...]
The first National Black Arts Festival in the United States was held in Atlanta in 1988. The NBAF typically presents the work of artists from the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and Latin America. The first festival was held in 1988 and the most recent in 2011. NBAF events are held in traditional and non-traditional [...]
Louis Armstrong (1900 – 1971), jazz trumpeter, was the first black to preside over the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Born in New Orleans, he learned to play the coronet and read music while in the Negro Waifs Home for Boys. Armstrong moved to Chicago and became one of the most influential jazz artists and [...]
Charles Gordone (1925 – 1995), playwright, was the first black dramatist to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, for the play “No Place to be Somebody.” Born Charles Edward Fleming, his parents were William and Camille Fleming. His mother later married William L. Gordon, and Charles adopted his stepfather’s surname. He added the “e” to [...]
Maya Angelou (Marguerite Johnson, 1928 – ), actress, dancer, and writer, was the first black woman to have an original screenplay produced, “Georgia Georgia,” which she directed. Angelou was also the first black woman to have a non-fiction work on the best-seller list. Her autobiographical “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1970) evoked images [...]