With a "crooked stick," filmmaker Oscar Micheaux (1884 1951)
sought to hit a "straight lick" by stressing the strategic
importance of class mobility, or "uplift," for African Americans. A
theme in all of his more than 40 feature-length, black-produced,
black-directed, black-cast, and black-audience films, uplift would
allow for the better things in life: fast cars and fancy clothes,
freedom of belief, financial security, and an unencumbered
intellectual life. Although racism was an impediment to uplift for
Micheaux and other African Americans, race as a category was of a
secondary order for him in the larger game of class. In With a
Crooked Stick, J. Ronald Green pursues this seeming contradiction
in a detailed analysis of each of Micheaux s 15 surviving films. He
presents critical commentary on each film s plot and action and its
contribution to the overall theme of uplift. Readers will also find
this an invaluable guide to the preoccupations and features of
Micheaux s remarkable career and the insight it provides into
the
African American experience of the 1920s and 30s."
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