Gustafsson, Tommy “The Visual Re-creation of Black People in a “White” Country: Oscar Micheaux and Swedish Film Culture in the 1920s”
Cinema Journal 47, Number 4. Summer 2008

     This article examines the fate of three films made by black independent filmmaker Oscar Micheaux that were exported to Sweden in the 1920s. The article also aims to analyze Swedish silent film culture, and, by means of its structure explain the treatment, when it came to censorship and advertising practices, that Micheaux’s films received in Sweden. This article focuses on the three films that were exported to Sweden: Within Our Gates, The Brute, and The Symbol of the Unconquered. Considering that Micheaux, and other independent black filmmakers during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, struggled against censorship, worked with small-scale productions, and had vast problems with distribution-it appears quite puzzling that Micheaux succeeded in exporting some of his films abroad without the assistance of a major studio’s distribution channels. This article shows how most of the world would accept race films, but not face the truth about how blacks were treated. Oscar Micheaux’s films portrayed the treatment of blacks how he saw it. His films contained harsh language, beatings, and lynching among other themes. The Swedish censors edited the films so much that anything dealing with the message Oscar was trying to get across was lost. Anything dealing with injustice, cruelty, or stereotyping, of whites toward blacks was removed. The resulting film was usually two-thirds or less of the original cut.
This article also reveals the view of African Americans in Sweden at the same time as these race films were being made. The importance of films made by African Americans being imported to Sweden is evident as the article gives examples of Racist cinema being produced in Scandinavia at that time.

Gaines, Jane "The Scar of Shame": Skin Color and Caste in Black Silent Melodrama

Jstor.org, Cinema Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4 (summer, 1987), pp. 3-21 <http://www.jstor.org/>

     This article shows how The Scar of Shame raises issues regarding the race and class constitution of the audience which bear on its mode of address. It tells how in the 1920’s “race movies” (movies made specifically for all black audiences) were created by the black bourgeoisie, in collaboration with the whites, for the entertainment of the class “below them”.  The class hierarchy of the blacks is explained through by showing the differences in the northern urban versus the southern rural black societies.

Gaines’ article argues that melodrama reenacts a moral pattern that parallels the moral system that that community operates upon.  The Scar of Shame, safely in a parallel universe can bring up emotionally volatile issues and traumatic outcomes.

A history of the discovery and restoration of The Scar of Shame described briefly but in detail.  It tells how it has become one of the most frequently exhibited examples of black cinema heritage, and how it has become one the source materials for new black independent film and video making.

The Scar of Shame was produced specifically for a black audience, but directed and photographed by white professionals. It shows the division of labor between white and black artists even when producing race films. 

The biggest point this article makes is how The Scar of Shame’s structure supports the case for the culpability of the upper and lower classes.

Cripps, Thomas Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era   Published by Oxford University Press US, 1993

     Chapter five of Cripps , titled “Hollywood Wins: The End of Race Movies”, is a summary of the origin of race movies, and the progression they took and role they played up until after the world war and civil rights movement.
Chapter five describes how race movies had risen out of segregation, and in a way prospered from it. The chapter shows that The Scar of Shame (considered the best of the race movies) provided the black audience with a shocking recognition of their plight and helped put forth a group moral that urged the black middle-class to strive for the “finer things”.
This chapter follows the progression of race films from their beginning, up until after the world wars when they became more and more unpopular even among African Americans. Cripps is not one sided when it comes to these films, he also gives us the bad side of race films. The point made is  that without segregation and persecution of African Americans these race films would not exist, shows that the production of these films was essentially feeding off of the black middle-class’ situation.
After the World Wars, there was not much use for race films anymore. With African Americans in the pentagon, meeting the President, and appearing eye-to-eye with white actors in Hollywood war movies, there were living examples of success for the middle-class to look at and imitate. Race films became a thing of the past, but this chapter shows that obviously they had meant something to African Americans; that they conveyed a sense and group that they could not find in any other medium.

Bowser, Pearl, Jane M. Gaines, and Charles Musser, editors. Oscar Micheaux & His Circle: African American filmmaking and Race Cinema of the silent era. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001.

     This book, in addition to the Micheaux Film Company, there is much information on the “race film” companies. To list a few that it mentions, The Lafayette Players, The Normal Company, Colored Players Film Corporation, and the Maurice Film Company.
The history of these production companies covered help incredibly in understanding what went into producing, filming, and distributing race movies. It is a detailed resource on the history of independent silent African American filmmaking in the U.S.
Also included are brief discussions on the politics of black representation in cinema, and
“black aesthetics and film”,
The Colored Film Players Corporation, based in Philadelphia, was responsible for the most influential and famous of the race movies The Scar of Shame (1927). This book gives us insight into the history of the company that brought us this famous African American film. Along with the history, it shows ties that the Colored Players Film Company had to Oscar Micheaux, the influences he had on them, and vice versa.
In order for us to understand the importance of race films, it is imperative that we know the origins and understand the history of this genre of independent cinema. Oscar Micheaux & His Circle is a must read for those with interest in the very beginnings, and the essence and importance of race films.

Cripps, Thomas Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942   pg. 181-
Oxford University Press US, 1977

Slow Fade to Black traces the roles of blacks in American films during the first half century. Slow Fade to Black represents a backward step in the effort to understand the complex and often contradictory role of Blacks in the history of U.S. film. Racial roles continued to affirm second-class citizenship for Black Americans long after the "watershed year" of 1942. Cripps tells how even with the growing amount of African Americans in cinema every time someone from the black middle-class went to a theater, they still saw their favorite performers as maids, cooks, butlers, grooms, or, worst of all, "natives." The impact of what Black performers did off screen did not, as Cripps claims, "allow them to ignore the impact of what they did on it."
Interestingly, around 1895, blacks were seen favorably on screen; however, they soon vanished as whites gained more financial and technical control over the medium.
Cripps tells how with the fade out of race movies and the fade in of the black musical that humanely depicted black southern life and its spoilage by urbanization, these films helped to define the nature of the black role in the movies.
This book tells of the journey of blacks in cinema; the different stages of their struggle for equality in American cinema, and their artistic stature that was eventually gained by their sharpened identity formed through their urbanization.

Gaines, Jane “Fire and Desire: Mixed Race Movies in the Silent Era” Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press. 2001.
     Fire and Desire asks what ‘‘we want from a theory of film that takes race into account,’’ a question that has barely been broached. In her book, Gaines insists that the ‘‘black’’ umbrella commonly used to describe even the smallest portion of black blood gives a false unity to the ongoing feeling of self and other that truly  informs the cultural tradition of race movies. Gaines warns that “to overlook the whiteness in race movies may be to claim them for a pure but impossible blackness” (271). This book shows that although race films are thought to be black films, for blacks, by blacks, there is no such thing as a pure black film. Every race film had white influence, and for the most part were produced, directed, and distributed by white people. Her main point is that what is thought to be pure black cinema is really just a mixed space, with cultural influences intersecting other cultural influences. Gaines does not hold up Oscar Micheaux’s, or any other race film as examples of an ‘‘authentically black’’ cultural representation, but always focuses, theoretically and historically, on the mixed nature of these films, to the basic fact that the light-skinned heroes of these films are only black by virtue of the positive application of blacks made by race movies of the time.
Gaines does not argue against the importance of race films for the African American community, but rather shows that even though a movie was meant for blacks, they were immensely influenced by whites. What is commonly thought to be independent black films are really mixed films, with a multitude of different cultural influences.  Fire and Desire sets the stage for a more mixed approach to the history and theory of race in film, and shows the importance that the reader understands this when viewing race films from the silent era.