Uplift Cinema

UPLIFT CINEMA UPLIFT CINEMA The Emergence of African American Film and the Possibility of Black Modernity ALLYSON NADIA FIELD Duke University Press · Durham and London · 2015 © 2015 DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ♾ Typeset in Minion Pro by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Interior design by Courtney Leigh Baker. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Field, Allyson Nadia, 1976– Uplift cinema : the emergence of African American film and the possibility of black modernity / Allyson Nadia Field. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8223-5907-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-5881-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-7555-5 (e-book) 1. African Americans in the motion picture industry—History—20th century. 2. African Americans in motion pictures—History—20th century. I. Title. pn1995.9.n4f54 2015 791.43′652996073—dc23 2014046259 Cover art: Film still courtesy A/V Geeks. Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, which provided funds toward the publication of this book. for Werner CONTENTS Preface · ix Acknowledgments · xvii Introduction · 1 1 THE AESTHETICS OF UPLIFT The Hampton- Tuskegee Idea and the Possibility of Failure · 33 2 “TO SHOW THE INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS OF THE NEGRO ALONG INDUSTRIAL LINES” Uplift Cinema Entrepreneurs at Tuskegee Institute, 1909–1913 · 83 3 “PICTORIAL SERMONS” The Campaign Films of Hampton Institute, 1913–1915 · 121 4 “A VICIOUS AND HURTFUL PLAY” The Birth of a Nation and The New Era, 1915 · 151 5 TO “ENCOURAGE AND UPLIFT” Entrepreneurial Uplift Cinema · 185 Epilogue · 245 Notes · 259 Bibliography · 299 Index · 311 PREFACE A decade after Booker T. Washington’s death and the public outcry against D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, Oscar Micheaux released his thirteenth film, Body and Soul (1925). A major example of 1920s race film, Body and Soul be- came famous for the screen debut of Paul Robeson and infamous for the con- troversy over its representation of Black criminality. Typical for Micheaux’s work, the plot is far from straightforward, and its convoluted structure in- volves an array of figures that represent a range of character types—the full spectrum of Black humanity. Robeson plays twins who have opposite charac- teristics: a charlatan masquerading as a preacher named Reverend Jenkins and his brother Sylvester, an upstanding aspiring inventor. The film centers on the lives of Martha Jane (Mercedes Gilbert), a laundress, and her daughter Isabelle (Julia Theresa Russell). Isabelle is in love with Sylvester but Martha Jane pushes her toward Reverend Jenkins, not realizing that he is in fact a con man. Jenkins takes advantage of Martha Jane’s faith and assaults Isabelle. Because Martha Jane is blind to the truth of her “pastor,” he is able to extort her hard-e arned savings from her daughter. Knowing that her mother would never believe her word over that of Jenkins, Isabelle flees to Atlanta and dies of starvation, but not before Martha Jane has found her and learned the truth. No longer de- ceived by Jenkins, she confronts him in the middle of a Sunday sermon and turns his betrayed congregation against him. Escaping, Jenkins seeks forgive- ness from Martha Jane who relents, pardoning the con man. Showing no genu- ine remorse, he goes on to kill a young male parishioner in a gruesome attack in the middle of the woods. At this point, to add to the confusion, Martha Jane wakes up and reveals that it was all a nightmare. Having learned a lesson from the dream, however, she blesses the marriage of her daughter to Sylvester, the proper “uplift” man. On its release, the film was sharply criticized in the African American press for its portrayal of a corrupt minister and inclusion of offensive scenes. In a let- ter to the editor of the Chicago Defender, William Henry wrote: “I would beg space to ask the many readers of our greatest Negro paper their opinion as to which screen production does our people the most harm, The Klansman, Birth of a Nation or Mischoux’s [sic] Body and Soul . ?” Comparing Micheaux to Griffith, Henry exclaimed: “What excuse can a man of our Race make when he paints us as rapists of our own women? Must we sit and look at a production that refers to us as niggers?”1 Henry’s angry attack implies that it is unsurpris- ing that Griffith would portray African Americans in a negative light, but that Micheaux, as “the czar of Race filmdom,” ought to produce positive counter- images to combat filmic racism.2 Micheaux, in effect, has an obligation to use the medium of film to promote the public image of Black respectability—the assertion of Black citizens’ fitness for civic engagement and conformity to middle- class ideals—and, perhaps most significantly, to present these traits to whites so as to be what was often called “a credit to the race.” In response to such criticism, Micheaux defended himself vigorously. He did so, however, not by avoiding the charge of negative representation but by placing it in the context of a readily recognizable figure: “I am too much im- bued with the spirit of Booker T. Washington to engraft false virtues upon ourselves, to make ourselves that which we are not. Nothing could be a greater blow to our own progress. The recognition of our true situation will react in itself as a stimulus for self-ad vancement.”3 Micheaux’s vehemence concerning realistic representation was matched by the ardor with which he insisted on the significance of his filmmaking for African American progress as “the greatest achievement ever made by the Race.”4 The debate about representation and progress turned on the meaning and viability of a concept central to the think- ing of Washington, Micheaux, and Henry alike: uplift. Put simply, uplift was an idea, a project, and a rhetorical strategy promoted by Washington and his allies, in which individual self-he lp was the key to collective progress of African Americans. Uplift philosophy began to emerge during Reconstruction, and by the turn of the century it was the main political, social, and economic program for African American advancement. For its propo- nents, uplift meant that material improvements (and the ensuing elevated social status) would be attained through individual striving and the self- sufficiency of the race—rather than political or social equality with whites created through legal means. Thus, uplift involved a complex negotiation of ambition and obse- quiousness, and of assertion and retreat, along with virtuosic rhetorical gym- nastics required to speak concurrently to two divergent audiences. x · Preface FIG. P.1 Booker T. Washington, from Charles Victor Roman, American Civilization and the Negro: The Afro- American in Rela- tion to National Progress (Philadel- phia, PA: F. A. Davis, 1916). In Black communities the uplift project foregrounded a bootstrap men- tality that put the burden of advancing the race on the achievements of the individual. While ignoring some forms of collective action, it posited each individual as potentially significant to the race at large. In so doing, uplift in- verted the white paternalistic view of Black dependency by insisting on the possibility of individual, and thereby collective, transformation. Micheaux’s life—especially his work as a writer, filmmaker, and distributor—exemplified the uplift ideal, as he worked toward economic independence in an industry that was more hostile than hospitable to African Americans. All the same, as Henry noted, Micheaux did not portray a straightforward notion of Black respectability in his films, nor did he singularly celebrate the advancement and achievements of heroic individuals. For Henry this was in conflict with Wash- ington’s vision, but Micheaux argued—accurately—that the uplift project had always been ambivalent about notions of respectability and Black society. Although projecting respectability was a key component of uplift rhetoric, Micheaux’s response to critics of Body and Soul points to a different aspect of the uplift project: the explicit acknowledgment of negative features prevalent in the popular imagination of white Americans, particularly Black criminality Preface · xi FIG. P.2–P.5 (above and at right) Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, 1925). and lack of industriousness. This aspect suggested that the worst features of Black life had to be acknowledged so that progress could be shown. Micheaux was able to defend himself by emphasizing Washington’s refusal to champion “false virtues,” arguing (however implicitly) that realist representation not only had veracity, but it was also a strategic principle designed to reflect the stereo- types held by many whites. As a result, he implies, his film will be able to over- come, rather than merely contradict, those negative images. Micheaux’s engagement with Washington resonates further in the form of a portrait prominently figured in the interior of Martha Jane’s home. In this portrait, an image found in many African American homes of the day, Washing- ton serves not only as a symbol of industriousness and striving but also as an observer of the domestic drama (figure P.1). Although the portrait is certainly a “visual tag to identify laudable character traits,” as Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence claim, it has a more complex role, serving as an aloof witness to intra- racial crimes of rape and extortion.5 Micheaux, then, can also be read as using the portrait of Washington to make a pointed critique of the ambivalences of the uplift project and its filmic components. In Body and Soul, as in the political enactment of uplift, all manner of sins are overlooked or disregarded in a strategically calculated compromise in service of the promotion of the race (figures P.2– P5).

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