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FROM STEPIN FETCHIT TO THE BLACK PANTHER THE LONG TRAJECTORY OF BLACK FILM MAKING In the words of the famous singer Sam Cooke It s The movies from the 60s and 80s were not as been a long a long time coming But I know a change demeaning and racist compared to the ones from gon come oh yes it will African American actors and the early 1900s the 3 hour film Birth of a Nation for film directors have come a long way from playing example which was a movie based on Thomas stereotypical roles of maids and cooks to giving Dixon s novel The Clansman depicts a story of US speeches at the Academy Awards African American history in the 1860s In the film African Americans men and women were confined to demeaning roles are portrayed as brutish lazy morally degenerated and films but this is after the 1920s before that blacks and dangerous and where the Ku Klux Klan is the were portrayed by whites covered in black make up hero who rises to save the South from the and red lipstick wherein most films they performed Reconstruction Era prominence of African racist and demeaning stereotypes that depicted us as Americans in Southern public life The film being lazy stupid foolish childish so on and so forth premiered in Los Angeles and became one of the But despite all of the adversity and racism that existed highest grossing and controversial films in U S then African Americans were able to move away from those stereotypical roles and take leading roles of protagonists in Hollywood s blockbuster films Early films degrading African Americans history There are also the films like the Ten Pickaninnies and Wooing and Wedding of a Coon that introduced another degrading and demeaning black screen caricature the coon which evolved into one of the most blatantly degrading stereotypes there were Some but not all African take the movie The Help as a step back to another demeaning role that takes us back to the stereotypical roles of cooks and maids The Help is a story of a group of black maids in the 60s from the state of Mississippi who agreed to share their stories of mistreatment from their bosses and reveal them in a book written by a young white aspiring actress who liberates them because they can t help themselves thus the title The Help There are also other films like Gone With the Wind Casablanca and Driving Miss Daisy were African Americans played demeaning roles that degrade blacks because the films convey the idea that blacks are subordinate unable to guide direct or give meaning to their lives without the leadership of whites more black caricatures both in films and cartoons and even though many black leaders from the NAACP protesting against it they had no power to stop this trend The Hollywood then was different from the Hollywood from today back then Hollywood was notorious for producing movies of different genres that promoted racist classist sexist and homophobic attitudes to different minority groups During this time the roles of African Americans were confined to loyal servants mammies and butlers reinforcing the social status of blacks which was that of servants who were devoted to his or her white masters this went on from the 1910s till the 1930s YROTS ERUTAEF EDWARD MCFIELDS

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FROM STEPIN FETCHIT TO THE BLACK PANTHER THE LONG TRAJECTORY OF BLACK FILM MAKING The Rise of Black Film Makers The Breakthrough Era Before the Civil Rights movement something After the Civil War many African American Americans unprecedented took place and this was the migrated to the North from the rural South for a better celebration for the first African American actor to future abandoning the Jim Crow laws of the South to the better living standards of the North The U S between the 1910s and 1940s saw a shift in the racial landscape and mainstream Hollywood started to reflect that change in their films From the 1910s to the 1930s a few black owned film companies were establishing that had colored cast and productions that had positive and diverse roles for actresses and actors win the Academy Award According to the Hollywood Reporter in February in a segregated No Blacks hotel in Los Angeles in 1940 Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to receive the Oscar for her role of Mammy in the film Gone with the Wind Hattie McDaniel then one of the biggest African American movie stars in the world marched into the Culver City offices of producer David O Selznick and placed a stack of Gone With the Wind reviews on his desk The Civil From this era we have the rise of the first African War epic released two months earlier had become American director Oscar Micheaux who was never an instant cultural sensation and McDaniel s bought or ever influenced by white Hollywood He was portrayal of Mammy the head slave at Tara the the Bill Cosby of the 1920s Micheaux rejected film s fictional Southern plantation Abramovich stereotypical roles of blacks He showed blacks in 2015 Though she was criticized by the African positions of power authority and respectability He Americans for her demeaning and stereotypical offered the opposite of what Hollywood depicted with housemaid she inspired many young African their cruel simplistic stereotypical films He loved to portray controversial subjects to its audiences like lynching segregation and racism Another great black filmmaker was Noble Johnson he was both actor and director an ambitious man who created his own movie company and became president of the Lincoln Motion Picture company This was the first movie company organized by black filmmakers Lincoln Motion Picture was the first company to produce films that portrayed blacks as real people who lived real lives Just like Noble Johnson Oscar Micheaux his films were shown in big city ghetto houses in the North and segregated theaters in the South as well as in black churches schools and social organizations By the late 1940s the black movie industry was fading but both Micheaux and Noble Johnson left a legacy for generations to come they inspired other blacks to be independent American actors It would take another 23 years for the African American to receive an Oscar With the growing momentum of the Civil Rights Movement more changes to Hollywood were taking place there was a larger presence of blacks sharing screen time with whites which was unprecedented at that time There was greater cast integration and greater encouragement from the Civil Rights movement YROTS ERUTAEF EDWARD MCFIELDS

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FROM STEPIN FETCHIT TO THE BLACK PANTHER THE LONG TRAJECTORY OF BLACK FILM MAKING During this era leading actor Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Academy Award for best actor He won for his role in Lilies of the Field he had also been nominated for best actor for The Defiant Ones five years earlier and though it was a tremendous breakthrough in terms of diversity it s also worth noting that when Ann Bancroft kissed him on the cheek when presenting him with the Oscar some people were offended Goodykoontz 2014 But that was the world back in 1964 the accomplishment Poitier received though made an impact to many African American lives it did not erase the sick reality that we were still living in a segregated world The various films in the 1960s saw a continuation of the work that was accomplished in the late 1950s with greater push back against the racial status quo greater cast integration and greater encouragement to better understand the meanings of race in the U S More African American representation in Hollywood Today Academy Award Winners Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel paved the road to modern day actors like Denzel Washington Morgan Freeman Whoopi Goldberg and Halle Berry to break more barriers and to have more African Americans take more leading roles in Hollywood Following the success of Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel more opportunities opened up to African American actors directors writers and producers continued to expand More African Americans were seen in all genres of films from action comedy drama documentary horror and romance More TV shows were blossoming that were portraying more African American families as normal human beings that lived real lives just like everybody else just like the way director Micheaux and Johnson did back in the 20s The Cosby Show was breaking new ground in the media portraying professional black families with a predominantly black cast We had the Jeffersons The Fresh Prince of Bel Air 1990 96 Family Matters 1989 98 and the progressively minded campus comedy spinoff A Different World 1987 93 Though some might say the show merely picked up where The Jeffersons 1975 85 and Good Times 1974 79 left off The Cosby Show remains the most watched show featuring a predominantly black cast in the history of American TV For five of the eight years it ran it was the mostwatched show in America period beloved by audiences of all colors and walks of life Flanagan 2014 These shows opened new doors to new talents and modern black family shows such as ABC s Black ish with more than 7 million viewers each week The show is now on its third season its ratings are higher of those from Modern Family and The Goldberg s YROTS ERUTAEF EDWARD MCFIELDS

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FROM STEPIN FETCHIT TO THE BLACK PANTHER THE LONG TRAJECTORY OF BLACK FILM MAKING EDWARD MCFIELDS African Americans have come a long way from being confined to demeaning stereotypical roles on television We are now seeing progress with more African Americans taking leading roles breaking boundaries and stereotypes and even though that plague of old Southern Jim Crow stereotypes is still evident in Hollywood today this shall come to pass 22 Out of 30 000 Hollywood film characters here s how many weren t white Retrieved October 30 2016 from http www pbs org newshour rundown 30000hollywood film characters heres many werentwhite Flanagin J 2014 September 24 Why The Cosby Show Still Matters Retrieved from http optalk blogs nytimes com 2014 09 24 why thecosby show still matters Goodykoontz Gannett Chief Film Critic B 2015 February 20 For blacks in Hollywood it s the same old script Retrieved October 30 2016 from http www usatoday com story life 2015 02 12 black history cinema 23321125 T J 2016 January 21 How racially skewed are the Oscars Retrieved October 30 2016 from http www economist com blogs prospero Schel la A Strachan M 2016 April 06 In The Rare Event A Hollywood Movie Features Two Black Retrieved October 30 2016 from http www huffingtonpost com entry hollywoodmovies blackleads_us_56eac044e4b065e2e3d89665 References Glassman M 2014 December 12 Chris Rock Is Right Hollywood Isn t Fair to Black Films Retrieved Abramovich S 2015 February 19 Oscar s First Black October 30 2016 from Winner Accepted Her Honor in a Segregated No http www bloomberg com news articles 2014 Blacks Hotel in L A Retrieved from 12 12 top five chris rock is right hollywood isnt http www hollywoodreporter com features oscars fair to black films first black winner accepted 774335 1 2015 August 20 Why do Hollywood studios Kang C Thompson K Harewell D 2014 refuse to accept that black films can rule the box December 23 Hollywood s Race Problem An Insular office Retrieved from Industry Struggles to Change Retrieved October 30 https thegrio com 2016 10 30 a list actor 2016 from https www coursehero com tutors calls himself out on cultural appropriation problems Business 9343233 Goodykoontz Gannett Chief Film Critic B 2014 httpswwwwashingtonpostcombusinesseconomyhollyw February 25 Oscar win proved Sidney Poitier was oods race proble second to none Retrieved from http www usatoday com story life movies 2014 02 25 black history month poitieroscar 5817735 YROTS ERUTAEF Though there is still work to be done nevertheless Samthanam L Crigger M 2015 September

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THE TOPIC OF REPARATIONS PERSISTS EDWARD MCFIELDS This economic gap between whites and blacks is no thriving US Economy for many centuries The coincidence a Holocaust of 400 years segregation exploitation of African Americans was the source of and racial discrimination in the labor and housing free wealth for the newfound colonies which came in markets are symptoms of slavery What African the form of free labor provided by the sweat of African Americans need are reparations monetary slaves Many generations of white Americans reparations that they rightfully deserve for prospered with slavery even after the days of reconstruction but not African Americans The economic gap that exists today between African Americans whites and other ethnic groups in the United States is due in part to generations of racial generations of servitude that their ancestors suffered during the years of slavery Slave labor was the foundation of a prosperous economic system in the United States discrimination and lack of economic reparations to the many millions of African American families that endured chattel slavery The current state of black America is not a mere coincidence the past events placed many African Americans at a disadvantage which will take If current economic trends continue the average black household will need 228 years to accumulate as much wealth as their white counterparts hold today Holland 2016 Although our government has made some strides in alleviating this current problem with more Equal Opportunities for blacks and affirmative action which is diminishing gradually African Americans remain handicap at the In 1675 black slaves that came from Africa were only about 5 000 but that number increased by 1787 when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia there were about half a million slaves The transport of Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas was the largest forced migration in world history Over 10 million people made the journey so many that are changed the trajectory of Africa s development Tindall G B Shi D E 2013 p 76 By the year 1850 with the introduction of the cotton crop to the colonies the slave population grew substantially to more than 3 million slaves with bottom of the barrel economically with high many of them working in the Southern plantations unemployment and poverty in highly concentrated with 60 percent of them in the cotton fields and the black neighborhoods rest worked either in other popular crops like tobacco or as craftsmen It is estimated that Of Despite predicted population growth by families of every hour of useful work done in the Southern color surpassing white families black families remain states roughly 40 minutes was performed by a behind whites in building wealth In 1963 The average slave DeRosa 2016 The United States became wealth of white families was 117 000 higher than the what Saudi Arabia is today with the commodity of average wealth of nonwhite families By 2013 the petroleum The South region supplied between 60 average wealth of white families was over 500 000 and 70 percent of the entire world s raw cotton higher than the average wealth of African American There was nothing quite like it back then with one families 95 000 and Hispanic families 112 000 fifth of America s wealth deriving from slaves By McKernan 2015 1840 cotton by 1840 cotton produced by slave labor SNOITARAPER African Americans played an integral role in our

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THE TOPIC OF REPARATIONS PERSISTS EDWARD MCFIELDS in the Northern States A large percentage of the 1860 just before the Civil war slaves as an asset mills were stationed in New England and they were worth more than all of America s manufacturing consumed millions of pounds of cotton that all of the railroads all of the productive capacity of originated from the South the United States put together Nolan 2014 It is estimated that many slaveholders that lived in the Lower Mississippi Valley were multimillionaires Slaves Inequality and Racial Discrimination post Civil War then which were nearly 4 million were worth nearly 3 5 billion which made them the largest single financial asset for the entire U S economy From all those millions African slaves did not see a single penny from all the work in the plantations Slaves that somehow managed to acquire their freedom were not able to find jobs and if they did local laws always found ways to get them back in the plantations or steal their property It was very common in the South for ordinances to be enacted to make life miserable for freed slaves In Charleston for example in 1806 were typical of those in force in southern towns and cities until slavery ended The ordinances made it illegal for slaves Carry on any mechanical or handicraft trade for their direct personal benefit put a slave as an apprentice in any mechanical or handicraft trade under the supervision of another slave and or buy sell or trade goods unless they had a ticket and then could sell only meat fruit and vegetables and other goods from their owners plantations Walker 2009 p 104 Everybody benefited from slavery it was around the wellprotected business Cotton consumers insurance companies and industrial enterprises benefited from slavery The Northern States despite common belief even though they abolished slavery in 1804 they also benefitted from slavery The North had an important involvement in slavery and cotton trade The cotton that was exported to Great Britain and Europe had to get processed Following the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation hundreds of thousands of freed slaves died from diseases and hunger One white religious leader in 1863 expected black Americans to vanish Like his brother the Indian of the forest Harris 2012 Many slaves found it difficult to start their new free life up to a million died during this transition A lot of freed slaves were not able to find work because or racial injustices and returned to work on the plantations they had escaped from After the Civil War the US government promised many things to freed slaves such as Sherman s Field Order No 15 also known as the 40 Acres and Mule Union General William T Sherman issued this order as a compensation reparation for freed slaves His order immediately provided a settlement for roughly 40 000 blacks but his order was shortlived and only distributed 400 000 acres to freed slaves After the civil war ended President Andrew Johnson overturned Sherman s order and returned most of the land to its original Southern planters Since this overturn it has been very difficult for African Americans to acquire land for many years and those that did acquire had difficulties keeping it SNOITARAPER constituted 59 percent of the country s exports By

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THE TOPIC OF REPARATIONS PERSISTS EDWARD MCFIELDS References Today many African Americans are still hoping for DeRosa P 2016 January 11 Was America Built By reasonable reparations for the labor of emancipated Slaves Retrieved from http www the american slaves and the failed land redistributions under the interest com 2016 01 11 was america built by Sherman Special Orders of 1865 It would be very slaves symbolic healing for the African American community Harris P 2012 June 16 How the end of slavery led The same way the United States government provided to starvation and death for millions of black reparations to other groups such as the Native Americans Retrieved from Americans for compensation for various Indian https www theguardian com world 2012 jun 16 communities and for the Japanese survivors from World slavery starvation civil war War II or the same way the German government paid Holland J 2016 August 08 The Average Black Jews for reparations African Americans should be Family Would Need 228 Years to Build the Wealth of equally compensated for a 400 year Holocaust The idea of reparations for African Americans has been a topic of discussion between blacks and whites for many years but nothing till day has been done Since the days of Fredrick Douglass Martin Luther King and the Pan African movement have tried but failed to bring reparations to African Americans but our government has been stagnant in this issue Many Americans have acknowledged that that African Americans were deprived at the hands of the state and federal governments corporations and individuals during the many centuries of slavery but a political effort has to occur to bring about changes For African Americans to move forward economic reparations have to take place 400 years of Slavery Jim Crow and racial discrimination have to be rightfully compensated Equal rights by all means are important to the African community but to successfully move forward and to help future generations economically compensations must take place a White Family Today Retrieved from https www thenation com article the averageblack family would need 228 years to build thewealth of a white family today McKernan S 2015 February 9 Charts about Wealth Inequality in America Retrieved from http apps urban org features wealth inequalitycharts Nolan H 2014 September 22 What Reparations in America Could Look Like Retrieved from http gawker com what reparations in americacould look like 1633066247 Ransom Roger Economics of the Civil War EH Net Encyclopedia edited by Robert Whaples August 24 2001 URL http eh net encyclopedia the economics ofthe civil war SNOITARAPER What needs to be done

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COFFEE WITH DAVID MCFIELD EDWARD MCFIELDS Your entire McField family lives in the Cayman Islands how did you end up in Nicaragua David McField is one of the most outstanding Nicaraguan poets who has been distinguished with the David My father James Henderson McField Rub n Dar o Order of Cultural Independence His Hennessey and my mother Eleanora Powell poetry focuses on the world of races and their cultures McField came from the Cayman Islands and settled and his vision on rhythmic blackness and social realism David McField is originally from Rama department of Zelaya Nicaragua he was born on October 6 1936 A graduate of the UNAN School of Educational Sciences he devoted himself to teaching at the Baptist College He has a degree in Spanish UNAN Managua He is considered one of the best poets in the Caribbean Some of his works include God is Black Dios es Negro En la calle de enmedio In the Middle Street 1968 Poems for the Elephant Year The Twenty Four He is the author of the memorable in the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua of what we call Bluefields They escaped poverty to find work in the booming hardwood and seafood market in the English speaking town of Bluefields Bluefields was an English colony it was a rendezvous for English and Dutch buccaneers in the 16th and 17th century and became capital of the English protectorate over the Mosquito Coast in 1678 Many migrants from all parts of the Caribbean flocked to this part of Nicaragua Jamaicans Trinidadians Barbadians It was our Caribbean gold rush and we were the 49rs testimonial song Pancas n and A Black Child Was Born He belongs to the Creole ethnic group and writes in English and Spanish He taught literature in the 1990s in the U S and currently serves as Nicaragua s ambassador to the Republic of Jamaica The Cayman Islands was not then what it is today there were no offshore banks and no tourism In fact when my father left the island there was no telephone service Electricity was very limited it only extended to a few districts of Grand Cayman He is one of the three poets who has been included in There was no piped water supply or sewage system previous years in the national poetic anthologies His poems have also been published in the First Poetic Mosquitoes were so thick at certain times of the Anthology of the Caribbean Coast 1998 in the New year they suffocated cows Many of Cayman s roads Cultural Dawn in the Literary Press in the Information were unpaved There were few restaurants and in Sunrise in the Pandemonium magazine of the shops and just the beginnings of a tourism industry Nicaraguan Institute of Culture in WANI in many magazines of national prestige in magazines in local television stations and channels geared mostly toward scuba divers DLEIFCM DIVAD Biographical Abstract

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COFFEE WITH DAVID MCFIELD EDWARD MCFIELDS Did the Harlem Renaissance inspire you to get in to poetry David Absolutely My father loved Jazz he had an old Graetz German radio and he would play nothing but rhythm and blues and classic Jazz David My father James was an entrepreneur he worked long hours for a few years enough to buy the family a farm We grew watermelons mangoes avocados and other vegetables that my brothers and I would sell in the city Your father Eduardo hated selling watermelons he preferred to polish shoes in the city It made sense and more money Your dad was one of the youngest people loved him and customers always tipped him well Me on the other hand I could not make a shilling polishing shoes thus I was stuck selling the watermelons We had humble childhood my mother homeschooled us she taught us how to read and write We did not have many books then but we had the Old King James Duke Ellington Charlie Parker Dizzy Gillespie and lots of calypso The radio was off limits on weekdays and Sabbath but on Sunday it was our past time Was poetry your career David Many people talk about poetry as a career but for me it never felt really like a career It is just something that I have always had an impulse to do whether or not I could make any sort of living from it Truthfully poetry was a hobby to me I enjoyed writing poems but my livelihood came from teaching at the Polytechnic of Nicaragua and my bookstore Libromundo Bible and five books from three Harlem Renaissance writers Claude McKay James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes This is where I got the poetry bug Edward I enjoy reading your poem Black is Black Ser Negro da lo mismo it is interesting how you speak about the different parts of the US when you never set foot in that country It reminded me of Louis Armstrong s song April in Paris Negro en los muelles de New York en Old Bank en los algodonales de Atlanta en Vietnam Laos Y Camboya en el Madison Square Garden Any last remarks David David May poetry good poetry written by both whites blacks and mestizos flourish and live in this melting pot of races Knowing how to write is the challenge and daring to say what others do not say but with wit this adds to the greatness of the poet it is what his readings leave us DLEIFCM DIVAD You were one of the eldest in a household of 11 siblings That must have been tough I have three sisters and growing up was a struggle to me Describe your childhood how was it growing up in Bluefields Nicaragua

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