Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Micheaux was the leading pioneer of African American film-making. Born in Illinois in 1884 to former slaves, Micheaux wrote, produced, and directed over 40 feature length “race films”—movies for Black audiences, with largely Black casts— between 1919 and 1948, more than any other filmmaker.
From 1922 to 1925, Roanoke served as a base for Micheaux’s enterprises. He produced films in the city, while boarding at the Hampton Hotel on Henry Street and maintaining an office in the Strand Theatre for his Congo/ Micheaux Film Corporation. The theater and hotel (now the Dumas) stand as “contributing” structures in the Henry Street National Register Historic District.
Oscar Micheaux produced eight films during his years operating the Congo/Micheaux Film Corporation in Roanoke. His dramas and melodramas portrayed Black actors in heroic social roles engaged in action plots covering controversial subjects on segregation, injustice, inter-racial love, and civil unrest. Micheaux shot the films on location with low budgets, relying on local talent and some professional African American actors, including Paul Robeson and Evelyn Preer. As a boy living in Roanoke, Oliver White Hill Sr., the national civil rights attorney, had a walk-on role in a scene from The House Behind the Cedars, which was filmed in Roanoke at 401 Gilmer Avenue.
Oscar Micheaux operated on Henry Street from 1922-1925, after moving from Chicago. During that time he wrote, produced and directed the following films:
- The Dungeon * (1922)
- Uncle Jasper’s Will (1922)
- The Virgin of Seminole * (1922)
- Deceit (1923)
- The House Behind the Cedars * (1924)
- Birthright (1924)
- A Son of Satan * (1924)
- Body and Soul (1925)
* filmed in Roanoke, Virginia