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Entry 2 - Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Early Cinema)

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Entry 2 - Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Early Cinema)

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Before the movie:

Tonight was the premier of a new film called Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the nickelodeon, I’ve heard it's a huge Hollywood release. I’m happy to say that I’m more than thrilled to see it and hope that it lives up to my expectations, I mean finally a film where I don’t need to worry about blackface, I’m sure James B. Lowe did a fantastic job.

After the movie:

I’m disappointed to say the least. Throughout the movie, everyone else seemed to be loving it, the house was filled with laughter and tears, but I sat heavy, feeling invisible. Uncle Tom was gentle, and kind, yes, but he was bent low, too humble, too soft in the face of cruelty. Still the faithful servant to the whites around him, still asking, pleading, forgiving when they whipped him raw. It was the first big film starring a black actor and I wanted to see strength, anger, a man who knew his own worth and to represent the identity us African Americans have gained through our experience. Instead, it was the same old mask, just worn by one of our own now. The world sees what the screen shows them. It hurts in a different way now, seeing our own face still bowed on that silver screen, a part of me wants to say that I’d rather the white person look like a fool trying to be us, but I know that in some way this film was still a step forward in history. While I can only hope that maybe one day, we will be more than this and have our own defiant roles in a Hollywood movie.

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Entry 3 - Birth of a Nation and the Rise of the "Buck"

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Entry 3 - Birth of a Nation and the Rise of the "Buck"

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For years now, the films have continued to be simple things, little comedies, a few romances, and most of all more burnt-cork blackface than anything else. No new major Hollywood movies  had come out with a black lead since Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and if there was a small film with a black actor you could assume that they were playing a small stereotypical part. We were barely there at all, except to be laughed at. But tonight, everything changed, and not for the better. Birth of a Nation filled the biggest theater in town. It wasn’t some silly short film this time. They said it was grand, sweeping, important, and I can understand why. It's the most technologically advanced film to date. So they called it a masterpiece. The worst part was it was becoming a national success. Up there on the screen, black men were no longer just foolish servants. We were made into monsters. Ravishers. Killers. And who saved the day? The Ku Klux Klan, riding in like knights. We were no longer the submissive Uncle Tom, but had become the aggressive Buck, a direct threat to white society.

While the whites continued to enjoy their new film, we began to protest and riot, pleading with city officials to ban it. But despite our efforts now, the damage was already done. This film didn’t just reflect their lies about us, but it made those lies grand, noble, and national. I fear what tomorrow will bring, and the days that follow. I fear what white eyes will now see when they look at me, and how much more harsh we will be treated.

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Expression of culture (music) during the Harlem Renaissance

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Sometimes I think about Harlem like it’s a dream place, a place where being black means being brilliant, not just being brave. The newspapers say the streets are alive with jazz, and poems, and people who look like me stepping on stages and behind cameras, not just shuffling through the screen for someone else's laugh. I ain’t never been, but I hear their names like hymns: Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington. Word travels down here, even if it is slow.

What stirs me most is Oscar Micheaux. A black filmmaker who took matters into his own hands by making his own films. He was the son of slaves, and was so good at what he did I’ve even heard him called “The Jackie Robinson of the Film World”. His movie, Within Our Gates came out a few years back, and they say it showed us as teachers, workers, thinkers, and not fools or monsters. Some say he made it as an answer to Birth of a Nation, but I think he was just showing us as we are. Real. Juxtaposing others who portray us as slaves, maids, and plantation owners, Micheaux featured us as teachers, lawyers, doctors. People like him made it possible for the world to start seeing black identity, creativity, and power in a different light.

Folks down here in Atlanta still look at you sideways if you’re too proud, too loud, too black. But every time I read about what’s happening up north, I feel like something’s shifting. Like the lies they built on screen are starting to crack. And maybe, just maybe, our stories are starting to rise up from the shadows.

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Hallelujah (1929): Hollywood's first all-black musical

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They brought a new picture to the theater this week called Hallelujah. First time I’ve seen an all-colored cast in a film made by one of the big studios, MGM. Folks were lined up and down the block. Some came just to see if it was true, if so many of us had finally been able to make it onto the screen and once without some being burnt cork and bug eyes.

And it’s true, I went to go see for myself and I saw so many of our faces up there. Real faces, full-bodied, singing and shouting and crying. But still, something didn’t sit right. None of it was authentic. The man behind the camera, King Vidor, was white, and I couldn’t help but feel it throughout the entire film. The story follows a sharecropper who turns to God after tragedy, but it plays heavy on the stereotypes of blacks being spiritual, poor, emotional, with other typical southern attitudes, as if that’s all we are.

I wanted to love it, and some parts I did, like the music, the choir, the way black life filled the screen for once. But when the lights came up, I realized: this wasn't our voice. It was theirs, dressed in our skin. Still, I suppose it cracked open a window. Maybe one day we’ll be behind the camera too, telling the story our way, not theirs. But this time something in me is telling me we are truly stepping in the right direction.

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Once again, a new groundbreaking film has come out, and the whole town's been buzzing about it, it’s called Gone With the Wind. To be expected, the theaters here are packed, folks dressing up like it’s a church revival. They say it’s a love letter to the old south, but I don’t see much to love. I saw it myself, and all I could feel was ache. There she was, the loud, loyal, and stubborn Mammy. And there was Hattie McDaniel behind her eyes, a woman with talent bigger than the screen. And still, they dressed her in a head rag and made her the help.

I read that the NAACP tried to stop the movie, worried it would be another version of Birth of a Nation, but that MGM promised them a “better version,” but I see the same lie that continues to be wrapped in film, that slavery was gentle, and us blacks were happy just serving. That lie runs deep down here in Georgia. White folks still hire us to clean their homes and rock their babies, some even expecting us to smile while doing it.

Hattie McDaniel, the woman who played the maid and was a precise image of the Mammy, won best supporting actress for that movie, which made her the first black person to win an Oscar. I want to cheer, I really did. But as proud as I was of her, they wouldn’t even let her sit at the same table as the other stars regardless of how talented she was. So can we really call this progress?

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There’s a film they’re showing up North called Lost Boundaries. Folks say it’s about a colored man who looks white, living in a white town with nobody knowing the truth. A doctor, they say. Good job, good home, good neighbors, until someone finds out he’s Negro. Then everything falls apart. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve read the papers. They’re calling it bold, progressive even. But I wonder: bold for who?

These “passing” stories ain’t really about us. They’re about white folks realizing how thin the line is and how close we are to them when they thought we were worlds apart. And yet they never let the ones who can’t pass be seen with that same respect. What about the rest of us? The ones with dark skin, southern accents, and no way to hide? Seems to me they only want to treat us like people when they think we aren’t really black at all.

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Entry 8 - Sidney Poitier: "Safe" Integration

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Entry 8 - Sidney Poitier: "Safe" Integration

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They just brought a new movie to the colored theater downtown, it’s called The Defiant Ones, starring Sidney Poitier. It came out this summer up north, but it’s only just now made its way down to us. Folks say it’s the first time they’ve ever seen a colored man and a white man chained together, literally side by side, while sharing the same struggle on screen.

I sat in that worn-down seat and watched Sidney run through swamps and forests, sweating, fighting, surviving. He was no fool, no clown, no servant, but was actually a human. I thought to myself, “That’s a real man right there,” and as I looked around the theater, I could see the pride in all of our eyes.

However, as we clapped, I began to hear the whispers starting, all about Sidney is portrayed so perfectly on screen: clean, light-skinned, soft-spoken, unthreatening. They love him because he doesn’t scare them. In The Defiant Ones, and again later in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner where Sidney plays the negro any white parent would accept as a doctor, brilliant and mannered, asking permission at every step.

Meanwhile outside, the streets of the south are still on fire with sit-ins, marches, and riots. But Hollywood doesn't show that. They show Sidney, smiling and noble, as if that’s enough. And it is huge. I won't downplay it, to have a black actor who is a peer towards the other white people on stage, and who portrays one of us as just as capable and competent as others is very important. I just wish it was also being shown by someone a bit bigger, darker, more realistic. But I can’t blame Sidney, he opened the door into Hollywood studios and will do whatever he can to keep his job as it flourishes. But sometimes I wonder: who will they let through next, and how is it going to reflect the rest of us?

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Entry 9 - Blaxploitation and Black Power

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Entry 9 - Blaxploitation and Black Power

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Hollywood stayed pretty quiet during the Civil Rights Movement, predictably because they knew they would be more problematic than anything. But this week has been a big week, a new movie called Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was just released at a theater, and honestly it didn’t feel like just another movie. It felt like a riot set to jazz. Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, and starred in it, the entire thing was made himself. A black man on the run, fighting back, and surviving by any means. It was raw, violent, and messy. No apologies, no yes-sir smiles. Just Sweetback, running from brutality and towards freedom.

Then Shaft hit the theaters. Cool leather coat, deep voice, walking like he owned every street he stepped on. A private eye who didn’t answer to anyone. For the first time, black folks in Atlanta left the theater with our heads high, not bowed, not disappointed. We’d seen enough Sidney Poitier who was clean, light-skinned, perfect. But these men? They had fire in their eyes.

The theaters were packed with brothers and sisters cheering, whistling, clapping. It wasn’t about whether the story was perfect, it was about seeing us with power. Still, some folks worried. Some of those movies were funded by the same white studios that wouldn’t give us the time of day a few years ago, and that wasn’t a great thing. The NAACP also was not fond of the fact that new negative stereotypes were being placed on us, but for me, that night, I didn’t care. Sweetback didn’t die and Shaft didn’t bow.

And then came The Spook Who Sat by the Door. Now that movie? That one didn’t just entertain, it stirred the soul. It was sharp, deliberate, and political. A black man infiltrates the CIA, learns their tactics, and then uses their own tools to train young revolutionaries in Chicago. It wasn’t about hustling or surviving, it was about fighting back with strategy and purpose. I couldn’t believe how bold it was. Ivan Dixon directed it masterfully, as it was quiet, brilliant, and dangerous in the best way. They yanked it out of theaters almost as soon as it arrived. Called it dangerous and provocative. They were right. I loved every second of it.

Maybe the stories were rough, full of hustlers, fighters, and fast talk, but it didn’t matter, because for the first time, we were standing tall on that screen and not shuffling in the shadows. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. And that was enough to make me believe the next chapter would be even stronger. So for now, it’s time to set my pen down.

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Entry 10 - Do the Right Thing: Rage Without Apology

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Entry 10 - Do the Right Thing: Rage Without Apology

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Grandma passed this journal down to me last spring. Said it was my turn now to keep watch, to keep writing. She told me the stories might change, but the fight would not, and that it was important to document our progress. I didn’t know what she meant until I sat in the theater last night watching Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.

The whole room buzzed with tension before the first frame even lit up. And Spike did not disappoint. He didn’t make us saints or villains, instead he showed us as we are: laughing, sweating, loving, arguing, hurting.

In the movie, one hot Brooklyn day boils over when a young black man is murdered by police. The rage that explodes isn’t neat or polite, it’s fire in a trash can, a brick through a window. Some folks said the film would cause riots, but all it really did was show the riot that had already been burning in our chests.

Grandma wrote about Sidney Poitier having to be perfect to be accepted. But now I can say that Spike gave us permission to be angry, messy, and loud, yet still worthy of being seen. Unfortunately, the world hasn't caught up to that yet.

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Entry 11 - #OscarSoWhite and Hollywood Today

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Entry 11 - #OscarSoWhite and Hollywood Today

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In 2015, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was launched by activist April Reign after the Academy Award nominations included only two actors of color in major acting categories. The hashtag quickly went viral, sparking a national conversation about racial exclusion in Hollywood, not just in awards, but in casting, directing, and storytelling. I mean, what do we expect when 92% of top film directors were men and 86% of top films featured white actors? The pressure led the Academy to diversify its voting membership and pushed studios to rethink how stories are shaped and who gets to tell them. More importantly, it empowered audiences and creators to demand real, lasting change that would prove visibility isn’t enough.

These days, they celebrate films like Get Out like it’s groundbreaking, but Jordan Peele didn’t invent the message, he just sharpened it. He pulled the mask off what we've been saying for decades: that even smiles can strangle, that horror can wear polo shirts and liberal praise. Then they hand out awards for other films like The Help and call it empathy as if finally understanding the pain of black maids in the Jim Crow south counts as progress. But we know better. We’ve seen this story before, just dressed in softer lighting, wearing the Mammy’s apron.

And still, we push. Black Panther gave the black community a rare sense of power and pride on screen. Yes, it had flaws, the so-called "good guy" hoarded technology behind royal bloodlines, while the “villain” just wanted to liberate oppressed people. But it was still a bold step forward and an effort to reimagine what black liberation could look like in film.

Yet Hollywood still acts like our success is a surprise. But we’ve earned every frame, every scene, every line. Grandma’s voice is in this journal, and so is mine. We’ve come a long way from pleading to end blackface to calling out tokenism at the Oscars. Every film is a step. Every generation pushes a little harder. And the story isn’t done. We’re still writing it.

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White person in blackface, used in minstrel shows

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Entry 1 - Blackface and Early Minstrelsy in Film

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Entry 1 - Blackface and Early Minstrelsy in Film

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I haven't been to the theaters in years. All of the films these days are just the same tired shows that include white men in blackface, prancing and grinning like fools. They smear the burnt cork on their skin and call it entertainment. They mock our voices, our walks, our very souls, and the crowds howl like it’s the cleverest thing they’ve ever seen. Years ago I used to hope that over the years things might be different, might be something better than the minstrel stages with white folk being their most comedic selves to make fun of us and bring laughs to the white audience. And things did change, but it feels worse now. Bringing it into film only makes it bigger, louder, harder to ignore.  Racism became portable, a way where people could enjoy the laughs of it in a larger group. Every flicker on that screen is a reminder that to them, we are a joke, not a people. I hear whispers now that something is beginning to stir up north. Music in the air, voices that sound like ours, art that doesn’t apologize. I don’t know what it is yet, or if it’ll ever reach us down here. But maybe, just maybe, the world is starting to turn. And maybe one day, the screen will too. Or maybe that’s just something I dream about when the theater lights go dark.