Within Our Gates (1920)

Within Our Gates

Jasper’s Wife: Justice! Where are you? Answer me! How long? Great God almighty, How Long?

The earliest known surviving film directed by an African-American is kind of a mixed bag.

School teacher Sylvia Landry is a proper, educated lady who is visiting the North to unite with the soldier she is engaged to.  She is duped by her trashy friend who wants Sylvia’s man for herself and coveted by the hussy’s criminal brother.  Her engagement is destroyed by these two and she returns to the South.

Sylvia gets more bad news when she returns.  The school she teaches in is running out of money due to the many children seeking an education and the Government’s failure to provide funding for them.  So Sylvia heads back North again to raise money.  In the process she is robbed by a Black scoundrel and rescued by a kindly Black idealist.  Later, she is hit by a car bearing a wealthy White philanthropist, who decides after much dilly dallying to save the school.  But nothing but sorrow awaits Sylvia when she returns home due to the perfidy of ignorant Blacks and racist Whites.

This is an interesting film that gives us a peek at what people of color were suffering 100 years ago.  It’s not particularly great however.  In fact, it features many stereotypical characters played by people who seem to have attended the Stepin Fetchit School of Acting.  Of course, most of the Whites are just as bad,  The story also suffers from a slow pace and melodramatic tone.  But I’m very glad to have caught up with it.