Close Up in Black:African American Film Posters

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Due to my excitement, this post may be all over the place so forgive me, LOL! Plus it's late.I took a trip to a nearby musuem today to view this travelling exhibiton which is a collection of posters ranging from the early 1900's to the present, capturing the African-American experience in film...and it was provocative, moving, colorful, and inspirational. I got emotional seeing the short film that accompanied the exhibit plus when reading the history which was displayed next to each poster of what the movie was about, how we were cast, the early stereotypical images, the limited budgets and all the struggles as well as the triumphs...

Each section was categorized from the Early Race pictures as they were called, and in this section I learned that Booker T. Washingtonwas involved in aflickcalledBirthof a Race in 1918 from an African-American point of view which was in response to the very offensive Birth of a Nation in 1915 which depicted brothers in the usual stereotypicallight.

I tell you what also was striking for me was that even though we had the leads in some of this early work..within the captions on the posters that had an all black cast it would say featuring an all-star negro cast or an all colored cast or featuring colored artists (as you will see below). The leads in those films names were also on the posters but not all the time and some of the early stars were Bill Pickett who was also a real-life cowboy, Kathryn Boyd, Anita Bush...

One particular Race film poster which struck and I guess it was because of the way they had the actress and actor positioned a certain way anyway it was a film titled Regeneration from 1923...it had this actress named Stella Mayo who appeared to betaken abackas she looked in the direction of the black actor who you guessed it appeared menacing...Mayo under the credits was referred to as a sensational colored screen beauty.

Some of these films featured us as cowboys, heroes, pilots and dealt with various issues and genres from westerns, murder mysteries/thrillers, musicals andhorror flicks and dealt with different socio-economic levels as well.

Then I made my way to the era when Paul Robenson was doing his thang...Josephine Baker, Bill Robinson...and then eventually to Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandrige, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Portier. There was an actor by the name of Ralph Cooper who was considered the black Bogart as in Humphrey. I got really excited when I got to the Blackploitation era...and got chills seeing the poster of trail-blazing director Melvin Van Peebles' Sweetback which was a movie about sticking it to the system. Also in the section, there was a Shaft poster, Foxy Brown, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Super Fly, Blacula, and CleoPatra Jones. It was said in this era, that there begin to me more roles for black leading lady heroes. I gotta write the caption on the super-fly poster because it brought back so many memories...Never a Dude like this one, He's got a plan to stick up the man, LOL! Rest in Peace Ron O'Neal.

As I made my around the exhibit...I came across the poster for the unforgettable Cooley high starring Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs (welcome back kotter fame). Then the posters of Spike Lee's early work like She's gotta have it, Do the Right thing...then was the poster for Soul Food, Love and Basketball, Beloved, ...

Alright I'll stop here and come back with additional comments...here are a few samples of the displayed work...enjoy!niceone.gifOh and if this exhibit is in your area by all means check it out, it'll be worth your time.