Migrating to the Movies Cinema and Black Urban Modernity [Paperback]

The rise of cinema as the predominant American entertainment around the turn of the last century coincided with the migration of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to the urban land of hope in the North. This richly illustrated book, discussing many early films and illuminating black urban life in this period, is the first detailed look at the numerous early relationships between African Americans and cinema. It investigates African American migrations onto the screen, into the audience, and behind the camera, showing that African American urban populations and cinema shaped each other in powerful ways.

Focusing on Black film culture in Chicago during the silent era,Migrating to the Moviesbegins with the earliest cinematic representations of African Americans and concludes with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux and other early race films made for Black audiences, discussing some of the extraordinary ways in which African Americans staked their claim in cinema's development as an art and a cultural institution.

Jacqueline Najuma Stewartis Associate Professor of English, Cinema & Media Studies, and African & African American Studies at the University of Chicago.

With this book, Stewart establishes herself as the authority on early Black cinema. The historiography is meticulous, original and compelling. Stewart puts theory and history into productive conversation. An extremely important work. Linda Williams, author ofPlaying the Race Card

As a child in West Virginia, I loved the movies, but I had little idea that my people's history was being constructed (and deconstructed) as I watched them. Jacqueline Najuma Stewart's bold new book lets us see how black history was, in part, made at the movies. The history of the Great Migration has rarely been so vivid or compelling. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author ofAmerica Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans