Within Our Gates
Encyclopedia
Within Our Gates is a silent
race film
that dramatically expresses the racial situation in America during the violent years of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan
, the Great Migration
, and the emergence of the "New Negro
".
raise money to keep a school open for poor Black children. Her romance with a black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family's past that expose the racial skeletons in America's closet, most famously through the film's depiction of a lynching
. Produced, written and directed by novelist Oscar Micheaux
, it is the oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director.
Often regarded in the context of D. W. Griffith
's The Birth of a Nation
, which had appeared five years earlier, Micheaux's project has been characterized as a response to the racism of Griffith's work. The film's depiction of lynching shows "what Blacks knew and Northern Whites refused to believe", turning the "accusation of 'primitivism'... back onto White Southern culture".
Two events spurred the film's creation: the release of D. W. Griffith
's The Birth of a Nation
(1915) four years earlier, with its heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan
after the American Civil War
; and the Chicago Race Riot of 1919
, in which ethnic white mobs killed numerous blacks and burned so many houses and apartments that thousands of blacks were left homeless. Micheaux chose the film's name as a response to D. W. Griffith, who used the line "Within your gates" in a film to suggest that people should not harm one another, lest they be harmed. For Micheaux, the tables could turn and whites could be harmed in the future.
Within Our Gates was the second of more than forty films directed by Micheaux. With a limited budget, Micheaux used borrowed costumes and props, and he had no opportunity to reshoot scenes.
Lost for decades, a single print of the film, entitled La Negra (The Black Woman), was discovered in Spain
in the 1970s. A brief sequence in the middle of the film was lost. Only four of the original English intertitles survived, the rest having been replaced with Spanish intertitles when the film was distributed in Spain in the 1920s.
In 1993, the Library of Congress
Motion Picture Conservation Center restored the film as closely as possible to the original. The Spanish
titles were retranslated back into English by Scott Simmon. He removed explanatory material, which had been added for Spanish audiences, and drew from the style and diction that Micheaux used in his novels and in the intertitles for Body and Soul, his only silent film to survive with its original intertitles. The missing sequence was summarized with an intertitle frame.
), a young African-American woman, visiting her cousin Alma in the North, while she waits for Conrad to return and marry her. Alma is also in love with Conrad, and prefers to see Sylvia married off to her brother-in-law Larry, a gambler and criminal. She hides a letter sent by Conrad, announcing his arrival. Alma arranges for Sylvia to be caught in a compromising position by Conrad when he finally returns. Conrad storms off and leaves for Brazil
, while Larry kills a man during a game of poker
. With nothing to keep her up North, Sylvia returns to the South.
Sylvia meets Rev. Jacobs, a minister who runs a school for black children. People from a wide area turn to the minister to educate their children and give them a chance for the future. The school is overcrowded, and he cannot continue on the small amount offered by the local government for education. With the school faced with closure, Sylvia volunteers to return to the North to raise $5,000.
At first, it seems she will fail. She cannot raise the money and her purse is stolen, but a local man, Dr. Vivian, manages to get it back for her. Sylvia is almost hit by a car as she saves a young child playing in the street. The car belongs to a wealthy philanthropist, Elena Warwick. Learning of Sylvia's mission, she decides to give her the needed money. Warwick's friend, Mrs. Stratton, a southerner, attempts to discourage her, but Warwick is angered and increases her donation to $50,000. With this amount, the school is saved, and Sylvia can return home.
Meanwhile, Dr. Vivian has fallen in love with Sylvia. He goes to Alma, who tells him about Sylvia's past: these scenes are portrayed in the film.
She was raised by a poor Black family, the Landrys, who managed to provide her with an education. During her youth, the senior Landry was wrongfully accused of the murder of an unpopular but wealthy white landlord, Gridlestone. A white mob attacked the Landry family, lynching
the parents and hunting down their son, who escaped after nearly being shot. The mob also lynched an Uncle Tom
servant of Gridlestone named Efram. Sylvia escaped after being chased by Gridlestone's brother, who tried to rape
her. When the attacker noticed a scar on her breast, he realized that Sylvia was his mixed-race daughter through his affair with a local black woman. He had paid for Sylvia's education.
After hearing her tragic story, Dr. Vivian goes to Sylvia and encourages her to love her country and take pride in the contributions African Americans have made to it. He professes his love for her, and the film ends with their marriage.
of 17 January 1920 asserted, "This is the picture that it required two solid months to get by the Censor Boards." A week later the Defender reported, "Those who reasoned with the spectacle of last July in Chicago ever before them, declared the showing pre-eminently dangerous; while those who reasoned with the knowledge of existing conditions, the injustices of the times, the lynchings and handicaps of ignorance, determined that the time is ripe to bring the lesson to the front."
Critics of the film feared that the vivid lynching
and attempted rape
scenes would spark further interracial violence in a city still tense from the riots of July
. Officials in Omaha
, New Orleans, and other cities objected along those lines when they blocked the screening of the film or demanded that these scenes be cut. In the context of this controversy, the film garnered large audiences in Chicago when it was released in January 1920. Apparently the film often screened in different cut versions. For example, an article in the Defender reported that on Tuesday, February 24 of 1920, Within Our Gates "will be shown" at the States Theater in Chicago "without the cuts which were made before its initial presentation." Other evidence of cuts included extant film stills of scenes that did not appear in the surviving film copy, as well as viewers' descriptions that are different from the film as it is now known.
The film is considered an important document of African-American life in the years immediately following World War I
, when violent racism
was still rampant throughout the United States. In 1992, Within Our Gates was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".
finesse or artistic power now appear short-sighted. Micheaux carefully constructed Within Our Gates to educate his audience about racism, uplift, peonage, women's rights, and the urban "new Negro" emerging after the Great Migration.
His movement back and forth from North to South repeated that of D. W. Griffith, who used a North-South marriage plot. Griffith dramatized a white reunion of regions that canceled the legacy of Reconstruction to leave blacks out of the national picture. Micheaux's film ended with a wedding as well, but his occurred between two sophisticated African Americans. His protagonists from the South and the North lay claim to the whole Nation. They did this in the face of discriminatory treatment of blacks in the military during World War I
, and eruptions of violence that met some returning African American veterans.
Critics (such as Jane Gaines, Ronald Green, and Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence) celebrated the skill with which Micheaux intercut the lynching of the Landry family with the attempted rape of Sylvia by Gridlestone. This editing deconstructed the ideology that whites had used in justifying lynching as punishment of black men for alleged sexual assaults against white women. The real story, as Micheaux demonstrated, was quite the opposite. His work reminded the audience of the long-standing practice of sexual predation by white men against black women, which has its roots in slavery days. Many other episodes turned out to be cleverly edited in ways that both showed and deconstructed white visual traditions and white ideologies.
Notable, too, was the detailed layering of allusions to current social and political events, from the death of Theodore Roosevelt
to the heroism of African American soldiers in the war to debates in the Senate over Jim Crow and peonage. The film's weaknesses may be excused by Micheaux's extremely limited budget and punishing schedule, and by the fragmentary nature of the only surviving print. In fact, we will probably never know what the "original" film looked like, or whether the only extant version is what Micheaux originally intended.
figure", referring to the actress' role in The Birth of a Nation, for the anti-feminist and racist characteristics she embodies. Ladd also bears a physical resemblance to Gish, suggesting a deliberate continuity by Micheaux.
Mr. Gridlestone's servant Efram attempted to ingratiate himself with the local white population by denouncing Mr. Landry as the murderer, even though he did not actually see the crime committed. Though he celebrated his relationship with the white community, Efram was lynched when the mob failed to find the Landrys.
Micheaux recognized the complexity of African American life, particularly in the Deep South. He was reluctant to blame only whites for the poverty of Blacks. He criticized Blacks who helped to perpetuate their condition for personal gain.
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
race film
Race movie
The race movie or race film was a film genre which existed in the United States between about 1915 and 1950. It consisted of films produced for an all-black audience, featuring black casts....
that dramatically expresses the racial situation in America during the violent years of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
, the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
, and the emergence of the "New Negro
New Negro
New Negro is a term popularized during the Harlem Renaissance implying a more outspoken advocacy of dignity and a refusal to submit quietly to the practices and laws of Jim Crow racial segregation...
".
Production background
The story focuses on an African-American woman who goes North in an effort to help a minister in the Deep SouthSouthern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
raise money to keep a school open for poor Black children. Her romance with a black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family's past that expose the racial skeletons in America's closet, most famously through the film's depiction of a lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
. Produced, written and directed by novelist Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films...
, it is the oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director.
Often regarded in the context of D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
, which had appeared five years earlier, Micheaux's project has been characterized as a response to the racism of Griffith's work. The film's depiction of lynching shows "what Blacks knew and Northern Whites refused to believe", turning the "accusation of 'primitivism'... back onto White Southern culture".
Two events spurred the film's creation: the release of D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
(1915) four years earlier, with its heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
; and the Chicago Race Riot of 1919
Chicago Race Riot of 1919
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1919 and ended on August 3. During the riot, dozens died and hundreds were injured. It is considered the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer of 1919, so named because of the...
, in which ethnic white mobs killed numerous blacks and burned so many houses and apartments that thousands of blacks were left homeless. Micheaux chose the film's name as a response to D. W. Griffith, who used the line "Within your gates" in a film to suggest that people should not harm one another, lest they be harmed. For Micheaux, the tables could turn and whites could be harmed in the future.
Within Our Gates was the second of more than forty films directed by Micheaux. With a limited budget, Micheaux used borrowed costumes and props, and he had no opportunity to reshoot scenes.
Lost for decades, a single print of the film, entitled La Negra (The Black Woman), was discovered in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in the 1970s. A brief sequence in the middle of the film was lost. Only four of the original English intertitles survived, the rest having been replaced with Spanish intertitles when the film was distributed in Spain in the 1920s.
In 1993, the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
Motion Picture Conservation Center restored the film as closely as possible to the original. The Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
titles were retranslated back into English by Scott Simmon. He removed explanatory material, which had been added for Spanish audiences, and drew from the style and diction that Micheaux used in his novels and in the intertitles for Body and Soul, his only silent film to survive with its original intertitles. The missing sequence was summarized with an intertitle frame.
Plot
The film opens with Sylvia Landry (Evelyn PreerEvelyn Preer
Evelyn Preer, born Evelyn Jarvis , was a pioneering African-American stage and screen actress and blues singer of the 1910s through the early 1930s. Evelyn was known within the black community as "The First Lady of the Screen."She was the first black actress to earn celebrity and popularity...
), a young African-American woman, visiting her cousin Alma in the North, while she waits for Conrad to return and marry her. Alma is also in love with Conrad, and prefers to see Sylvia married off to her brother-in-law Larry, a gambler and criminal. She hides a letter sent by Conrad, announcing his arrival. Alma arranges for Sylvia to be caught in a compromising position by Conrad when he finally returns. Conrad storms off and leaves for Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, while Larry kills a man during a game of poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
. With nothing to keep her up North, Sylvia returns to the South.
Sylvia meets Rev. Jacobs, a minister who runs a school for black children. People from a wide area turn to the minister to educate their children and give them a chance for the future. The school is overcrowded, and he cannot continue on the small amount offered by the local government for education. With the school faced with closure, Sylvia volunteers to return to the North to raise $5,000.
At first, it seems she will fail. She cannot raise the money and her purse is stolen, but a local man, Dr. Vivian, manages to get it back for her. Sylvia is almost hit by a car as she saves a young child playing in the street. The car belongs to a wealthy philanthropist, Elena Warwick. Learning of Sylvia's mission, she decides to give her the needed money. Warwick's friend, Mrs. Stratton, a southerner, attempts to discourage her, but Warwick is angered and increases her donation to $50,000. With this amount, the school is saved, and Sylvia can return home.
She was raised by a poor Black family, the Landrys, who managed to provide her with an education. During her youth, the senior Landry was wrongfully accused of the murder of an unpopular but wealthy white landlord, Gridlestone. A white mob attacked the Landry family, lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
the parents and hunting down their son, who escaped after nearly being shot. The mob also lynched an Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a person who perceives themselves to be of low status, and is excessively subservient to perceived authority figures; particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people....
servant of Gridlestone named Efram. Sylvia escaped after being chased by Gridlestone's brother, who tried to rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
her. When the attacker noticed a scar on her breast, he realized that Sylvia was his mixed-race daughter through his affair with a local black woman. He had paid for Sylvia's education.
After hearing her tragic story, Dr. Vivian goes to Sylvia and encourages her to love her country and take pride in the contributions African Americans have made to it. He professes his love for her, and the film ends with their marriage.
Response
Within Our Gates was initially rejected by the Board of Censors in Chicago when Micheaux first submitted the film in December 1919. An article in the Chicago DefenderChicago Defender
The Chicago Defender is a Chicago based newspaper founded in 1905 by an African American for primarily African American readers.In just three years from 1919–1922 the Defender also attracted the writing talents of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks....
of 17 January 1920 asserted, "This is the picture that it required two solid months to get by the Censor Boards." A week later the Defender reported, "Those who reasoned with the spectacle of last July in Chicago ever before them, declared the showing pre-eminently dangerous; while those who reasoned with the knowledge of existing conditions, the injustices of the times, the lynchings and handicaps of ignorance, determined that the time is ripe to bring the lesson to the front."
Critics of the film feared that the vivid lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
and attempted rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
scenes would spark further interracial violence in a city still tense from the riots of July
Chicago Race Riot of 1919
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1919 and ended on August 3. During the riot, dozens died and hundreds were injured. It is considered the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer of 1919, so named because of the...
. Officials in Omaha
Omaha
Omaha may refer to:*Omaha , a Native American tribe that currently resides in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Nebraska-Places:United States* Omaha, Nebraska* Omaha, Arkansas* Omaha, Georgia* Omaha, Illinois* Omaha, Texas...
, New Orleans, and other cities objected along those lines when they blocked the screening of the film or demanded that these scenes be cut. In the context of this controversy, the film garnered large audiences in Chicago when it was released in January 1920. Apparently the film often screened in different cut versions. For example, an article in the Defender reported that on Tuesday, February 24 of 1920, Within Our Gates "will be shown" at the States Theater in Chicago "without the cuts which were made before its initial presentation." Other evidence of cuts included extant film stills of scenes that did not appear in the surviving film copy, as well as viewers' descriptions that are different from the film as it is now known.
The film is considered an important document of African-American life in the years immediately following World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, when violent racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
was still rampant throughout the United States. In 1992, Within Our Gates was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".
Aesthetics
Early judgments that Micheaux's work lacked aestheticAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
finesse or artistic power now appear short-sighted. Micheaux carefully constructed Within Our Gates to educate his audience about racism, uplift, peonage, women's rights, and the urban "new Negro" emerging after the Great Migration.
His movement back and forth from North to South repeated that of D. W. Griffith, who used a North-South marriage plot. Griffith dramatized a white reunion of regions that canceled the legacy of Reconstruction to leave blacks out of the national picture. Micheaux's film ended with a wedding as well, but his occurred between two sophisticated African Americans. His protagonists from the South and the North lay claim to the whole Nation. They did this in the face of discriminatory treatment of blacks in the military during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and eruptions of violence that met some returning African American veterans.
Critics (such as Jane Gaines, Ronald Green, and Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence) celebrated the skill with which Micheaux intercut the lynching of the Landry family with the attempted rape of Sylvia by Gridlestone. This editing deconstructed the ideology that whites had used in justifying lynching as punishment of black men for alleged sexual assaults against white women. The real story, as Micheaux demonstrated, was quite the opposite. His work reminded the audience of the long-standing practice of sexual predation by white men against black women, which has its roots in slavery days. Many other episodes turned out to be cleverly edited in ways that both showed and deconstructed white visual traditions and white ideologies.
Notable, too, was the detailed layering of allusions to current social and political events, from the death of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
to the heroism of African American soldiers in the war to debates in the Senate over Jim Crow and peonage. The film's weaknesses may be excused by Micheaux's extremely limited budget and punishing schedule, and by the fragmentary nature of the only surviving print. In fact, we will probably never know what the "original" film looked like, or whether the only extant version is what Micheaux originally intended.
Representation of racism
The film attempted to portray the many different faces of contemporary African American society. There were heroes and heroines, like Sylvia and Reverend Jacobs, but there were also criminals like Larry and lackeys like a minister whom Mrs. Stafford supported, who tried to encourage African Americans to reject suffrage. Some critics have suggested that Bernice Ladd, who plays Mrs. Stafford, represents a "Lillian GishLillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
figure", referring to the actress' role in The Birth of a Nation, for the anti-feminist and racist characteristics she embodies. Ladd also bears a physical resemblance to Gish, suggesting a deliberate continuity by Micheaux.
Mr. Gridlestone's servant Efram attempted to ingratiate himself with the local white population by denouncing Mr. Landry as the murderer, even though he did not actually see the crime committed. Though he celebrated his relationship with the white community, Efram was lynched when the mob failed to find the Landrys.
Micheaux recognized the complexity of African American life, particularly in the Deep South. He was reluctant to blame only whites for the poverty of Blacks. He criticized Blacks who helped to perpetuate their condition for personal gain.
External links
- Stace England & The Salt Kings Original Song Within Our Gates With Film Clips