To read Part I, covering the independent Race Movie years of the 1910s and '20s, click here
To read Part II, covering the Hollywood Studio years of the 1930s and '40s, click here
In American silent films, minority roles were almost invariably filled by white actors in exaggerated and offensive make-up. Latinos in silent films usually played greasers and bandits; Asian-Americans usually played waiters, tongs and laundrymen; and blacks usually played bellboys, stable hands, maids or simply "buffoons." Not surprisingly, both Asian-Americans and blacks responded by launching their own alternative silent cinemas. But whereas Asian-American Silent Cinema quickly faltered, silent, black "race movies" flourished. In the 1930s and '40s, Hollywood began to phase out the practice of blackface (while continuing the practice of redface and yellowface) and successfully wooed race movies' sizable and thus profitable audience. By the 1950s, with its enormous budgets and star power, Hollywood had effectively co-opted and destroyed the independent Black Cinema known as race movies. The result was that there were far fewer examples of Black Cinema in the decade. In the years that followed, as TV chipped away at film’s dominance, a few black actors began appearing on the small screen in shows like Beulah (1950-1953) and The Amos 'n Andy Show (1951-1953) which, whilst hardly socially progressive, at least offered more acting opportunities for black actors.
Though race movies were done and over with, black actors and filmmakers made some in-roads in Hollywood. In 1952, William Walker was elected as a member the Screen Actors Guild Board of Directors, where he served until 1971. At the Guild’s meeting the year Walker joined, he and a pre-darkside Ronald Reagan presented a report titled “More and Better Roles for Negroes in Motion Pictures” from the Negro Employment Committee. Although no real changes came about as a result of it, Walker tirelessly continued to use his position to lobby Hollywood's executives for years. Finally, in 1963, he partnered with the NAACP and successfully negotiated for the SAG’s Theatrical Agreement to include a non-discrimination clause.
BLACK CINEMA IN THE '50s
BLACK ACTORS WHO GOT THEIR START IN THE '50S
Al Freeman Jr. Billy Dee Williams Billy Preston Brock Peters
Carmen De Lavallade Cicely Tyson Clarence William III Claudia McNeil
Coley Wallace Diahann Carroll Diana Sands Geoffrey Holder
Haywood Nelson Helen Martin Hilda Simms Ivan Dixon
Joe Adams Lou Gossett Jr. Mahalia Jackson Maya Angelou
Millie Bruce Nichelle Nichols Olga James Ossie Davis Rosetta LeNoire
Not pictured are Charles Swain, Fred Moultrie, Georgia Burke, Ike Jones, John Thurston, Marilyn Clark, Miles Clark, Moses LaMarr, P. Jay Sidney, Rosalind Hayes, Ruth Attaway, Stanley Greene, Thelma Oliver, Vince Townsend and Zelda Cleaver.
BLACK CINEMA IN THE 1960s
Prior to the 1960s, Hollywood's preferred showcase for black talent was musicals. However, with the decline in their popularity, the industry continued to feature black characters in "problem films." In Sydney Poitier vehicles, the actor routinely played mainstream African-Americans who were articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guys, leading to his nickname, "The Ebony Saint." Meanwhile, on TV, a few programs aired that showed black characters in lead roles playing non-stereotypical characters for the first time. On shows like Star Trek, black characters were often featured, although the most prominent was Nyota Uhura, who was given little to do besides show leg. This led to Nichelle Nichols planning to leaving the show until she was urged to stay by a fan named Martin Luther King, Jr.
I Spy (1965-1968) Julia (1968-1971) The Bill Cosby Show (1969-1971)
Meanwhile, a couple of French and French-Italian co-productions and American regionals exploited racial tension in a less tempered manner and were shown in the Grindhouse circuit in the US, including: Les tripes au soleil (Checkerboard) - 1959, This Rebel Breed - 1960, Les lâches vivent d'espoir (My Baby is Black) - 1961, Murder in Mississippi - 1965 and The Black Klansman - 1966.
BLACK MOVIES IN THE '60s
I Passed for White and Sergeant Rutledge (1960), Raisin in the Sun (1961), Gone are the Days (1963), Black Like Me, The Cool World, Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’, Nothing But a Man and One Potato, Two Potato (all 1964), The Black Klansman and A Man Called Adam (both 1966), Dutchman and It Won't Rub Off, Baby (both 1967), For Love of Ivy and Story of a 3 Day Pass (both 1968), The Learning Tree and Slaves (both 1969)
BLACK ACTORS WHO GOT THEIR START IN THE '60s
Abbey Lincoln Barbara Ann Tier Bill Cosby Della Reese
Dick Gregory Dionne Warwick Dizzy Gillespie Don Marshall
Esther Rolle Fred Williamson Gloria Foster Greg Morris
Hal Williams Isabel Sanford Jackée Harry Ja'net DuBois
Jeff Burton Johnny Brown Julius Harris
Max Julien Paul Winfield Redd Foxx
Robert Hooks Robert Kya-Hill Roscoe Lee Brown Yaphet Kotto Woodie King Jr.
Not pictured are Gary Bolling, Kyle Johnson, Leonard Parker, Marc Copage, Mark Dymally and Martin Priest.
It was due, in large part, to the efforts of Van Peebles, Parks and the growing number of black actors that had careers in the 1970s, Black Cinema would once again flourish under the banner of Blaxploitation. While at first a vibrant genre which produced several quality films, it too would once again be co-opted by Hollywood and white filmmakers who reduced to formulaic action films about pimps and hos. Black Cinema recovered in the 1980s as an independent alternative to Hollywood, with which it successfully co-existed for the first time -- largely, no doubt, because Hollywood for the most part stopped bothering itself with focusing on or casting minorities in substantial roles. Since the '80s, Hollywood's preferred method of examining race has been with "Through Blue Eyes" films (e.g. Ghosts of Mississippi, Schindler's List, Mississippi Burning, Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, Amistad, Shogun, The Mission, &c), in which members of the oppressors (always white) become accepted by (and then help) the oppressed, who can't help themselves without white assistance. So, although most modern black cinema titles may have a lower profile than examples in the past, rest assured there are a numerous black films being released every week -- just check out Amoeba's enormous and popular Black Cinema section.
