by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Born in 1866, Mattie Edwards is quite possibly the first Black leading lady in mainstream film. Her career started in vaudeville in the late 1880s, and she began working in film as early as 1913. Edwards was part of a company of Black actors that worked for the Lubin Manufacturing Company, an early production company that made silent short films between 1896 and 1916. Lubin produced notoriously racist films starring white actors in blackface, but between 1913 and 1915 the company produced a series known as “Colored Comedies.” Keep in mind that these shorts were almost as racist as the movies Lubin produced with white actors in blackface. Edwards was Lubin’s leading Black actress, and she starred in at least twenty-four of the company’s shorts. Her co-star was often John “Junk” Edwards, though it is unclear if they were related in some capacity, or just shared the same last name. Mattie Edwards also appeared in movies produced by Essanay Studios (which produced early Charlie Chaplin movies) and the Ebony Film Company, as well as appearing in two Oscar Micheaux productions. Mattie Edwards died in 1944, and has been largely left out of film history.
To learn more about actors like Mattie Edwards and companies like the Lubin Manufacturing Company, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Best known as the founder and host of “amateur night” at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Ralph Cooper was a prominent player in the world of race films. Known as “Dark Gable” (after Clark Gable), as well as the “Bronze Bogart” (after Humphrey Bogart), Cooper starred in several films, including BARGAIN WITH BULLETS and GANGSTERS ON THE LOOSE, as well as DARK MANHATTAN and THE DUKE IS TOPS, both of which he also wrote and directed. Cooper was closely associated with the gangster movies he helped produce with brothers Harry and Leo Popkin’s Million Dollar Productions. The Popkins (who were white) and Million Dollar Productions made a series of low budget race movies, all shot in a week or less, including THE DUKE IS TOPS, the first major starring role for Lena Horne.
To learn more about filmmakers and actors like Ralph Cooper, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Often referred to as “the Black Garbo” or “the Colored Garbo,” Nina Mae McKinney was the first black leading women in mainstream Hollywood, with twenty-six appearances to her credit. Nina (pronounced Nine-ah) was born in South Carolina in 1913, and moved to New York while still in her teens, where she worked as a dancer on Broadway. It was while dancing the chorus line of the popular musical Blackbirds of 1928 that McKinney was “discovered” by legendary director King Vidor, who cast her in Hallelujah, his first talking motion picture, and one of mainstream Hollywood’s earliest race films.
McKinney was one of the first black actresses signed to a studio contract, but MGM never really utilized her. She was considered to glamorous and attractive for the servant roles that would go to actresses like Butterfly McQueen or Hattie McDaniel, and there was no way she would be cast opposite a White actor in any kind of romantic context. As a result her career languished, and McKinney was loaned out to other studios, mostly for B-movies and low budget “black cast” pictures like Gang Smashers and The Devil’s Daughter. She also co-starred opposite Paul Robeson in Sanders of the River, where he played an African tribal chief wearing a leopard-skin loincloth, and she played his imperiled wife. McKinney spent much of her career looking for work in America and Europe, where she mostly performed in live cabarets. Her final film performance was an uncredited role in the 1950 film Copper Canyon. Nina Mae McKinney died of a heart attack in 1967 at the age of 54.
To learn more about performers like Nina Mae McKinney, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/673613/black-film-by-david-f-walker/
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Although he was not the first black filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux was the first black director to produce a feature-length film, and he was certainly the most prolific producer of race films for nearly thirty years. With no film experience at all, Micheaux produced a feature-length version of his self-published novel The Homesteader in 1919. Over the next three decades, Micheaux would make 41 more films, creating his own cottage industry of stars that included Paul Robeson (who made his film debut in Micheaux’s 1925 film Body and Soul), Lorenzo Tucker (often billed as “The Black Valentino”), Alec Lovejoy, Carman Newsome and Laura Bowman. Micheaux traveled cross-country with his films in the trunk of his car, showing the movies anywhere he could screen them.
To learn more about filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies, which will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
A Chocolate Cowboy (originally titled Mine Your Business!) is a silent short film released in 1927. The film starred white actor Fred Parker in blackface as a character named Rastus. There is nothing exceptional–or good for that matter–about A Chocolate Cowboy. The one interesting thing about the film is that the poster used to promote the film does not make it clear that the lead character is a blackface minstrel, which is uncommon for the time. It almost seems like the film’s distributor was intentionally trying to make it look like a race film with an all-Black cast. Blackface was very common during the silent film era, and producers made no attempts to hide the fact that a movie starred white actors in blackface. I’ll post more about blackface in film later.
To find out more about more about blackface in film, check out my new book, Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies, coming from Ten Spreed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Fifteen years ago, one of my best friends died. I miss him with all of my heart. Barry was an incredible musician, and I especially loved his song “Simply Said.” On a whim, I called him up one day in the summer of 2009 and said, “Let’s make a music video.” A few hours later we shot this video, and I edited it the next day.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Nellie Crawford was born March 7, 187, but she was known to the world as Madame Sul-Te-Wan (pronounced Salty One). Sul-Te-Wan began working in films during the silent era, with her first notable role being in D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. She was the first Black actress signed to a studio contract, and would go on to appear in more than sixty films, including the first Tarzan movie, 1918’s Tarzan of the Apes, Hallelujah, and Carmen Jones. Most of the time she played servants, slaves, or some kind practitioner of voodoo. She appeared with her sons Onest and Odel Conley in King Kong, where all three played jungle natives in uncredited roles. Her last film appearance was in 1958’s Tarzan and the Trappers. The following year, Sul-Te-Wan died at the age of 85.
To learn more about actors Madame Sul-Te-Wan, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Born in 1881, actor and filmmaker Noble Johnson appeared in his first movie in 1915. His career would span five decades, include 144 films, and incredibly, he seldom played an African-American character (although he did play many jungle savages—including the tribal leader in King Kong, and the character Friday in 1922’s The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe). Johnson was a contemporary and friend of legendary actor Lon Chaney, Sr., and like Chaney, Johnson was a man of a thousand faces. During his career, Johnson played mostly Native Americans, an occasional Chinese, a Russian, and various monsters (he was helped by his 6’2” frame). Along with his brother George, Johnson founded The Lincoln Motion Picture Company in 1916, a film production company started to create movies with positive images of Blacks. Their first production was The Realization of the Negro’s Ambition (1916), which the Johnson brothers made in direct response to D.W. Griffith’s racist Birth of a Nation. The Lincoln Motion Picture Company soon folded in 1921, but Johnson enjoyed a long and prolific career, retired from film in 1950, and passed away in 1978 at the age of 96.
To learn more about filmmakers like Noble and George Johnson, and much more, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Contrary to what many people may think, a “RACE FILM” it is not a movie like F1, Ford v Ferrari, or Talladega Nights. In fact, race films have nothing to do with racing. RACE FILM was a term popularized 1916 and used to describe and categorize movies produced for Black audiences, starring all-Black casts. To be clear, there were films with Black characters and even all-Black cast movies before 1916; but it was after the 1915 release of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, that an entire industry was born in response to what was a monumentally racist cinematic love letter to the Ku Klux Klan.
Dozens of independent film production companies formed at a time when much of the country was still segregated, and the film industry was doing little to cater to Black audiences or show Black characters in roles that weren’t demeaning. Keep in mind that the Black characters that appeared in early silent films were most often racist stereotypes, and many were portrayed by white actors in blackface. One of the first production companies to form in 1916 was The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, founded by brothers George and Noble Johnson. Lincoln produced such notable race films as By Right of Birth, The Realization of the Negro’s Ambition, and The Trooper of Troop K, which starred Noble Johnson.
To learn more about race movies, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies, which will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026.
You can pre-order the book here.
by David F Walker | May 9, 2026 | News & Updates
Rather than writing something, I tried my hand at making a video. Please check it out (because it took forever to put this together).
