Within Our Gates (1920)

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Within Our Gates was released on January 12, 1920, in the USA. The American drama film was produced by Micheaux Book & Film Company. The movie storyline was written and directed by Oscar Micheaux. The main character is Sylvia Landry, who was portrayed by Flo Clements. The movie depicts an intelligent black woman with a traumatic past, betrayed by her fiancé, who devotes herself to supporting a heavily indebted school for exploited black youths.

Plot

Sylvia Landry (Flo Clements) tries to raise 5,000 USD for maintaining a Southern private school for poor black children through a fundraising tour to Boston. She then meets Dr. Vivian (William Smith), a warmhearted man who falls in love with Sylvia and moves back to the South with her. There, Dr. Vivian learns about the painful and tragic past of Sylvia as her life was forever changed by prejudice.

Controversy

Oscar Micheaux was one of the earliest African-American directors and the movie has brought a revolution to film business where black Americans could take part in the film from cast on the movie and seen by the black audience in the theaters. It's a movie that demonstrates the movement of black women from the South to the North, a very significant occurrence during the early 20th century for African Americans.

This movie responds explicitly to D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Country (1915), in which Micheaux argues that African Americans are also entitled to full American citizenship, is a movie that is groundbreaking in its social message[1].

Undoubtedly, Micheaux's movies were cut and edited by censors. Some citizens were very sensitive to some of the things he portrayed in his movies, and in the summer of 1919, mass protests had just occurred in Chicago, so there was a lot of fear about showing a film so similar to such violent incidents that could rile up negative emotions[2].

References