Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated black woman with a traumatizing past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished black children.
Direction
Micheaux's fearless framing of lynching — unprecedented for 1920.
Acting
Evelyn Preer's face carries entire scenes without title cards.
Writing
Ambitious interweaving of romance, crime, and racial terror.
Director
Oscar Micheaux
Evelyn Preer
Sylvia Landry
Flo Clements
Alma Prichard
James D. Ruffin
Conrad Drebert - Sylvia's Fiancé
Jack Chenault
Larry Prichard - Alma's Stepbrother
Charles D. Lucas
Dr. V. Vivian
Bernice Ladd
Mrs. Geraldine Stratton
Mrs. Evelyn
Mrs. Elena Warwick
William Starks
Jasper Landry
Mattie Edwards
Jasper's Wife
E.G. Tatum
Efram - Gridlestone's Servant
Grant Edwards
Emil Landry
Grant Gorman
Armand Gridlestone
William Smith
Philip Gentry - A Detective
Ralph Johnson
Philip Gridlestone
Leigh Whipper
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made partly as a direct response to The Birth of a Nation (1915), funded by Black investors and shown in segregated theaters.
The original negative was lost for decades; the surviving print was discovered in Spain with Spanish intertitles, later restored.
US
