The Complete Oscar Micheaux: God’s Step Children (1938)
- Fri, Sep 27
Director: Oscar Micheaux Run Time: 70 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 1938
Starring: Alice B. Russell, Charles Thompson, Ethel Moses, Jacqueline Lewis, Trixie Smith
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
Naomi, a light-skinned Black child, is abandoned by her mother and raised by the virtuous Mrs. Saunders (Alice B. Russell, Micheaux’s wife and collaborator). When the girl’s fixation with whiteness turns her against her own race, she is sent to a convent. Hopelessly in love with her adoptive brother, Jimmie, Naomi consents to marry his friend, but is repulsed by his darker skin and unrefined ways. The narrative comes full circle as Naomi leaves her own newborn baby and makes a tragic attempt to pass in white society.
”The best yet in sound, acting and screening that [Oscar Micheaux] has done.”
— Chicago Defender via UCLA Film Archive
About the filmmaker:
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an author, film writer and director, and independent producer of more than 44 silent films and sound films from 1919—1948. Micheaux was the first African American filmmaker to produce a full feature-length film and is regarded as a prominent producer of race films, and the most successful African American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century. Micheaux’s work is not only a milestone in African American cinema, but an incredible insight into American history regarding race in society.
Born in 1884 to enslaved parents, Micheaux first left home to work for the railroads in Chicago. He had his sight set higher as a writer and a determined creative. He wrote a series of novels, including his self-published The Homesteader. Not only was Micheaux a pioneer in African American cinema, but also in independent publishing and filmmaking. After turning down offers to produce his novel into a film, he later found his own path to producing the 1919 film. Micheaux serves as a symbol of triumphing over the circumstances at hand to bring his vision to reality. The groundbreaking auteur’s features include The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), Body and Soul (1925), Within Our Gates (1920) and Birthright (1938).
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