Oscar Micheaux

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is film direction, film production and creative and professional writing. Works named in the authority record are Story of Dorothy Stanfield. Distinctions recorded are Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

• Name — Oscar Micheaux • Birth Name — Oscar Devereaux Micheaux • Born — 2 January 1884 • Birthplace — Metropolis, Illinois, U.S. • Died — 25 March 1951 • Place of death — Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. • Occupation — Director, author • Awards — * Directors Guild of America Awards: 1986Golden Jubilee Special Award • Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6721Hollywood Boulevard

Micheaux was born on a farm in Metropolis, Illinois, on January 2, 1884. He was the fifth child born to Calvin S. and Belle Michaux, who had a total of 13 children. In his later years, Micheaux added an "e" to his last name. His father was born into slavery in Kentucky. In his later years, Micheaux wrote about the social oppression he experienced as a young boy. His parents moved to the city so that the children could receive a better education. Micheaux attended a well-established school for several years before the family eventually ran into money troubles and were forced to return to the farm. The discontented Micheaux became rebellious and his struggles caused problems within his family. His father was not happy with him and sent him away to do marketing in the city. Micheaux found pleasure in this job because he was able to speak to many new people and learned social skills that he would later reflect in his films. When Micheaux was 17 years old, he moved to Chicago to live with his older brother, then working as a waiter. Micheaux became dissatisfied with what he viewed as his brother's way of living "the good life". He rented his own place and found work in the stockyards, which he found difficult. He moved from the stockyards to the steel mills, holding down many different jobs. After being "swindled out of two dollars" by an employment agency, Micheaux decided to become his own boss. His first business was a shoeshine stand, which he set up at a wealthy African-American barbershop, away from Chicago competition. He learned the basic strategies of business and started to save money. He became a Pullman porter on the major railroads, at that time considered prestigious employment for African Americans because it was relatively stable, well paid, and secure, and it enabled travel and interaction with new people. This job was an informal education for Micheaux. He profited financially, and he also gained contacts and knowledge about the world through traveling as well as a greater understanding for business. When he left the position, he had seen much of the United States, had a couple of thousand dollars saved in his bank account, and had made a number of connections with wealthy white people who helped his future endeavors. Micheaux moved to Gregory County, South Dakota, where he bought land and worked as a homesteader. This experience inspired his first novels and films. His neighbors on the frontier were predominately blue-collar whites. "Some recall that [Micheaux] rarely sat at a table with his blue collar white neighbors." Micheaux's years as a homesteader allowed him to learn more about human relations and farming. While farming, Micheaux wrote articles and submitted them to the press. The Chicago Defender published one of his earliest articles. His homestead failed and he was forced to sell it in 1911. The next year, he began his publishing career when Woodruff Press of Lincoln, Nebraska published The Conquest. He began work on a second book, The Forged Note, and from 1914 to 1918 traveled among Lincoln, Gregory County, and Sioux City, Iowa marketing his work. While in Sioux City, he lived in and was influenced by the West 7th Street neighborhood where the town's African-American community had a strong presence.

• Illustration — Micheaux in 1919 Micheaux decided to concentrate on writing and, eventually, filmmaking, a new industry. He wrote seven novels. In 1913, one thousand copies of his first book, The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer, were printed. He published the book anonymously, for unknown reasons. He based it on his experiences as a homesteader and the failure of his first marriage and it was largely autobiographical. Although character names have been changed, the protagonist is named Oscar Devereaux. His theme was about African Americans realizing their potential and succeeding in areas where they had not felt they could. The book outlines the difference between city lifestyles of Negroes and the life he decided to lead as a lone Negro out on the far West as a pioneer. He discusses the culture of doers who want to accomplish and those who see themselves as victims of injustice and hopelessness and who do not want to try to succeed, but instead like to pretend to be successful while living the city lifestyle in poverty. He had become frustrated with getting some members of his race to populate the frontier and make something of themselves, with real work and property investment. He wrote more than 100 letters to fellow Negroes in the East beckoning them to come West, but only his older brother eventually took his advice. One of Micheaux's fundamental beliefs was that hard work and enterprise would make any person rise to respect and prominence no matter his or her race. In 1918, his novel The Homesteader, dedicated to his mother, attracted the attention of George Johnson, the manager of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in Los Angeles. After Johnson offered to make The Homesteader into a new feature film, negotiations and paperwork became inharmonious. Micheaux wanted to be directly involved in the adaptation of his book as a movie, but Johnson resisted and never produced the film. Instead, Micheaux founded the Micheaux Film & Book Company of Sioux City; its first project was the production of The Homesteader as a feature film. And so began Micheaux's major career as a film producer and director: He produced more than 40 films, which drew audiences throughout the U.S. as well as internationally. Micheaux contacted wealthy academic connections from his earlier career as a porter, and sold stock for his company at $75 to $100 a share. Micheaux hired actors and actresses and decided to have the premiere in Chicago. The film and Micheaux received high praise from film critics. One article credited Micheaux with "a historic breakthrough, a creditable, dignified achievement". Some members of the Chicago clergy criticized the film as libelous. The Homesteader became known as Micheaux's breakout film; it helped him become widely known as a writer and a filmmaker. In addition to writing and directing his own films, Micheaux also adapted the works of different writers for his silent pictures. Many of his films were open, blunt and thought-provoking regarding certain racial issues of that time. He once commented: "It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in the light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights." Financial hardships during the Great Depression eventually made it impossible for Micheaux to keep producing films, and he returned to writing.

Micheaux's films were made during a time of great change in the African-American community. His films featured contemporary black life. He dealt with racial relationships between blacks and whites, and the challenges for blacks when trying to achieve success in the larger society. His films were used to oppose and discuss the racial injustice that African Americans received. Topics such as lynching, job discrimination, rape, mob violence, and economic exploitation were depicted in his films. These films also reflect his ideologies and autobiographical experiences. Micheaux sought to create films that would counter negative portrayals of African Americans in films by white producers, which trafficked in degrading stereotypes. He created complex characters of different classes. His films questioned the value system of both African-American and Euro-American societies, which stirred controversy with the press and state censors.

Critic Barbara Lupack described Micheaux as pursuing moderation with his films and creating a "middle-class cinema". His works were designed to appeal to both middle- and lower-class audiences. Micheaux said, My results... might have been narrow at times, due perhaps to certain limited situations, which I endeavored to portray, but in those limited situations, the truth was the predominant characteristic. It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in the light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights. I am too imbued with the spirit of Booker T. Washington to engraft false virtues upon ourselves, to make ourselves that which we are not.

• Illustration — Grave of Oscar Micheaux in Great Bend being decorated during the 2005 Oscar Micheaux festival Micheaux died on March 25, 1951, in Charlotte, North Carolina, of heart failure, aged 67. He is buried in Great Bend Cemetery in Great Bend, Kansas, the home of his youth. His gravestone reads: "A man ahead of his time".

In South Dakota, Micheaux married Orlean McCracken. Her family proved to be complex and burdensome for Micheaux. Unhappy with their living arrangements, Orlean felt that Micheaux did not pay enough attention to her. She gave birth while he was away on business, and was reported to have emptied their bank accounts and fled. Orlean's father sold Micheaux's property and took the money from the sale. After his return, Micheaux tried unsuccessfully to get Orlean and his property back. He married Alice B. Russell in 1926. Oscar and Alice remained married until his death.

In 2014, Block Starz Music Television released The Czar of Black Hollywood, a documentary film chronicling the early life and career of Oscar Micheaux using Library of Congress archived footage, photos, illustrations and vintage music. The film was announced by American radio host Tom Joyner on his nationally syndicated program, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, as part of a "Little Known Black History Fact" on Micheaux. In an interview with The Washington Times, filmmaker Bayer Mack said he read the 2007 biography Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only by Patrick McGilligan and was inspired to produce The Czar of Black Hollywood because Micheaux's life mirrored his own. Mack told The Huffington Post he was shocked that, in spite of Micheaux's historical significance, there was "virtually nothing out there about [his] life". The film's executive producer, Frances Presley Rice, told the Sun Sentinel that Micheaux was the first "indie movie producer". In 2018, Mack was interviewed by the news site Mic for its "Black Monuments Project", which named Oscar Micheaux as one of its 50 African Americans deserving of a statue. He said Micheaux embodied "the best of what we all are as Americans" and that the filmmaker was "an inspiration". A historical marker in Roanoke, Virginia, commemorates his time living and working in the city as a film producer.

Micheaux was not the only person in the early race film industry. Other filmmakers, like the ones in the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, based in Omaha, Nebraska, produced similar works and covered similar themes. The company was founded in 1916 by Noble Johnson and George Perry Johnson. and produced five films before going defunct in 1921 after relocating to Los Angeles, California.

• The Homesteader (1919) [Lost] • Within Our Gates (1920) [Survives] • The Brute (1920) [Lost] • The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920)[Survives (incomplete)] • The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921) [Lost] • The Dungeon (1922) [Lost] • The Hypocrite (1922) [Lost] • Uncle Jasper's Will (1922) [Lost] • The Virgin of the Seminole (1922) [Lost] • Deceit (1923) [Unknown] • Birthright (1924) [Lost] • A Son of Satan (1924) [Lost] • Body and Soul (1925) [Survives] • Marcus Garland (1925) [Lost] • The Conjure Woman (1926), adapted from novel by Charles W. Chesnutt [Lost] • The Devil's Disciple (1926) [Unknown] • The Spider's Web (1926) [Lost] • The Millionaire (1927) [Lost] • The Broken Violin (1928) [Lost] • The House Behind the Cedars (1927), adapted from novel by Charles W. Chesnutt [Lost] • Thirty Years Later (1928) [Lost] • When Men Betray (1929) [Lost] • The Wages of Sin (1929) [Lost] • Easy Street (1930) [Lost] • A Daughter of the Congo (1930) [Lost] • Darktown Revue (1931) [Survives] • The Exile (1931) [Survives] • Veiled Aristocrats (1932) [fragments; Survives (incomplete)] • Ten Minutes to Live (1932)[Survives] • Black Magic (1932) [Survives] • The Girl from Chicago (1932) [Survives] • Phantom of Kenwood (1933) [Survives] • Harlem After Midnight (1934) [Lost] • Murder in Harlem (1935) [Survives] • Temptation (1935) [Survives] • Underworld (1937) [Survives] • God's Step Children (1938) [Survives] • Swing! (1938) [Survives] • Lying Lips (1939) [Survives] • Birthright (1939) [Survives] • The Notorious Elinor Lee (1940) [Survives] • The Betrayal (1948) [Lost]