A collection of three award-winning films. This compilation is designed to increase awareness of how black writers, artists and freedom fighters contributed to the American cultural tradition.
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1973) 23 minutes A collage of pictures, African art, dramatizations, poetry and story readings, this film biography is a tribute to the first black American to become a recognized poet. As it describes his life and his methods for coping with the many problems he faced, the film also visually illustrates some of Dunbar's poems and dramatizes one of his stories.
Gift of the Black Folk (1978) 16 minutes In a striking combination of graphics and historical photographs, this film surveys the lives of Denmark Vesey, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, and accomplishments of these three African-American leaders in the struggle for freedom.
Two Centuries of Black American Art (1976) 26 minutesThis film surveys Black American art, tracing the African influences in early work, the widening range of work produced in the slave era, the early struggles for serious recognition in the 19th Century, and the important contributions of today's African-American artists