Within Our Gates

Image credit: IMDb

Perhaps now, more than ever, there is a heftier demand for stigmas and taboos surrounding people who were not born old, white, males to be abolished and for all industries to come to the realisation that the talents within those industries, whether they come from a woman, an African-American, an Asian, or a transgender person, are just as great and important as the white man’s.

Green Book may have snagged the Oscar this year, but its triumph is hardly a celebration of colour, race, and the changing times (some would argue it’s exactly the opposite). The ridiculousness of the whole conservative white power within the Academy becomes even more frustrating and stupid when you consider that African-American cinema has been around since the 1920s!

This brings me to my film of choice this afternoon: Within Our Gates.

Written, produced, and directed by Oscar Micheaux, the film tells a moving and tragic story of a black teacher (Evelyn Preer) who travels north to raise money for her rural school in the south that educates black children. Alongside this central story are several others including a severed romance, a murder, and the hunt for an underworld crime boss.

Within Our Gates is s significant piece of cinema. Not only is it a brutal depiction of racial prejudice and oppression in 1920s America (both in the north and south) it is the earliest surviving feature from an African-American director. Micheaux proves that art can be achieved by anyone regardless of race, gender, or religion with this film that both violently and succinctly reflects the times. What is most impressive about Within Our Gates is that it’s a brutal and searing depiction of clashing cultural attitudes as well as open racism whilst at the same time being a stirring melodrama and fusion of popular movie genres that offer something for a wide audience. It’s a romance, it’s a tragedy, it’s even a little bit of a thriller at one point and this fantastic fusion of genres makes for a really fulfilling movie experience within the space of just over an hour.

Image credit: Movies Silently

Dramatic and mesmerising performances keep eyes on screens, along with the haunting orchestral soundtrack, and the captions (which double as the credits) are particularly nice, taking a leaf from Huckleberry Finn and being written in a unique phonetic dialect of the Deep South.

Considering that the film was lost for seventy years –it was rediscovered at the Filmoteca Espanola in Madrid and restored shortly after- none of its cultural significance or relevance has faded and it might be time to resurrect a few of these old classics.

Director: Oscar Micheaux, 1920

Cast: Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin, Jack Chenault, William Smith, Charles D. Lucas, Bernice Ladd, Mrs. Evelyn, William Stark, Mattie Edwards, Ralph Johnson, E.G. Tatum, Grant Edwards, Grant Gorman, and Leigh Whipper