Within Our Gates (1919) Movie Of The Month

A silent race film produced, written and directed by novelist Oscar Micheaux, it is the oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director.
The film dramatically expresses the racial situation in America during the violent years of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration, and the emergence of the "New Negro". The story focuses on an African-American woman who goes North in an effort to help a minister in the Deep South raise money to keep a school open for poor Black children. Her romance with a black doctor eventually leads to revelations about her family's past that expose the racial skeletons in America's closet, most famously through the film's depiction of a lynching.

Director:
Oscar Micheaux
Writers:
Gene DeAnna (restoration titles), Oscar Micheaux
Stars:
Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements and James D. Ruffin