The Gamut from A to B

The outrageous and shabby treatment that blacks have received at the hands of the American motion picture industry has become common knowledge in recent years. The matter has been aired thoroughly on television and explored fully in newspapers and magazines. But although only recently drawn the American public's attention, the fact that the movies until just a few years ago either completely ignored blacks or, with rare exceptions, stereotyped them in demeaning and/or condescending roles has been a subject of discussion and condemnation for a long time, especially in the black community. As long ago as 1914, when the movies were still in their infancy, the respected black journalist Lester Walton strongly denounced the industry for ridiculing and continually representing the race at its worst. Arguing that the movies could be an important educational force for improved relations between black and white America, Walton declared that the duty of the industry should be to emancipate the white American from his peculiar ideas about the black community and not further incorrect notions of the colored American . . . hurtful both races

Art history · Duty · Film industry · Media studies · Movie theater · Newspaper · Political science · Race (biology · Sociology · Subject (documents · Subject matter · White (mutation · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society