Oscar Micheaux

The epic story of the actors, writers, directors, and producers who fought for their place on the page, behind the camera and on the screen. From blackface to Black Panther, this series is a definitive chronicle of more than a century of the black experience in Hollywood and a powerful reexamination of a quintessentially American story – in brilliant color.

A look at the extraordinary achievements and contemporary legacy of Oscar Micheaux, a pioneer of the African-American film industry.

Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated black woman with a traumatizing past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished black children.

After graduating from Harvard University, Peter Siner returns to his small Tennessee hometown, where he hopes to start a school for black children.

A nightclub singer refuses to "date" customers, so she's framed for the murder of her aunt.

Naomi, a light-skinned Black child, is abandoned by her mother and raised by the virtuous Mrs. Saunders. When the girl's fixation with whiteness turns her against her own race, she is sent to a convent. Hopelessly in love with her adoptive brother Jimmie, Naomi consents to marry his friend, but is repulsed by his darker skin and unrefined ways.

An undercover government agent on a case in Mississippi meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman who's being menaced by a local crime boss.

In this film, African-American Leroy Collins struggles with the onus placed on him by Society when he falls in love with a white woman.

Eve Mason, a white-passing black woman, moves to a remote cottage she inherited from her late father. She makes the acquaintance of her neighbor, a dashing black settler named Hugh Van Allen, and quickly falls for him. Trouble brews as the local cadre of racist hucksters want the valuable land Van Allen lives on, and will do anything to take it from him.

A convict escapes to a Southern town and passes himself off as a reverend, giving him the perfect cover to swindle the townspeople and corrupt an innocent young woman.

An idealistic young man is torn between a sultry Chicago nightclub owner and a Scottish South Dakotan farmgirl.

Gangsters use a woman to get to a boxer and convince him to throw a big fight.

Directed by Oscar Micheaux and Jerry Mills.

Film producer Winston L. Jaune gives his brother J. Lee a job in his company. J. Lee promptly steals company funds, spends lavishly in cabarets, at wild parties, and on women putting the company in financial difficulties.

Myrtle Downing, an African-American woman, is coerced into marrying a corrupt would-be politician named Gyp Lassiter, even though she is really in love with Stephen Cameron, a young lawyer. When she discovers that her husband has conspired to support segregationist policies in exchange for support by white political power brokers, she objects to his crooked dealings and gets herself imprisoned in a secret dungeon where her husband had murdered his previous wives. Presumed to be a lost film.

A young woman plans to marry, but her mother and brother--a lawyer--don't like her prospective husband and scheme to prevent the marriage.

An African American entrepreneur who has built up his fortune in South America returns to the U.S. and falls in love with a young woman who turns out to be part of a notorious family of criminals. Considered a lost film.

A Black night watchman at a chemical factory finds the body of a murdered white woman. After reporting it, he finds himself accused of the murder.

Ted Gregory is trying to be the first black producer to mount a show on Broadway, but he has trouble with his star singer.

A young black Harvard graduate fights against a variety of obstacles, including racist opposition, in order to build a school for black children. Considered a lost film.