Oscar Micheaux Biography

Fast Facts

• Was honored posthumously with a Golden Jubilee Special Award from the Directors Guild of America in 1986
• In his youth he worked as a shoe shiner and railway porter, later becoming a homesteader and forming his own publishing company around the stories he wrote
• Started his own film production company and became the first African-American to make a film, "The Homesteader," in 1919
• Best known as the first major African-American feature filmmaker and the most famous producer of race films
• Wrote seven novels during his career, one of which became a national bestseller
• Although most of his films were shown in segregated theaters, he eventually became the first African-American to produce a film that was shown in "white" theaters
• His film "Within Our Gates" was an attack on the racist stereotypes in D․ W․ Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation․"