With a Crooked Stick-The Films of Oscar Micheaux

With a crooked stick, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux (1884--1951)sought to hit a straight lick by stressing the strategic importance ofclass mobility, or uplift, for African Americans. A theme in all of hismore than 40 feature-length, black-produced, black-directed, black-cast, andblack-audience films, uplift would allow for the better things in life: fast carsand fancy clothes, freedom of belief, financial security, and an unencumberedintellectual life. Although racism was an impediment to uplift for Micheaux andother African Americans, race as a category was of a secondary order for him in thelarger game of class. In With a Crooked Stick, J. Ronald Green pursues this seemingcontradiction in a detailed analysis of each of Micheaux's 15 surviving films. Hepresents critical commentary on each film's plot and action and its contribution tothe overall theme of uplift. Readers will also find this an invaluable guide to thepreoccupations and features of Micheaux's remarkable career and the insight itprovides into the African American experience of the 1920s and30s.