Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only (53 page)

INTERVIEWS:
Leroy Collins, Jesse Johnson, Myra Stanton Miller, Haskell Wexler.

CORRESPONDENCE, ADVICE, AND ENCOURAGEMENT:
Robin Bachin, Ed Barnettt, John Baxter, Stephen J. Bourne, Pearl Bowser, Martha Boyle, R. L. Burns, William Cahill, Earl Calloway, Thomas Cripps, James Curtis, Duane DeJoie, Scott Eyman, Paul Fellows, Kathryn Frye, Jane Gaines, Charles Hensey, Stephen Goldfarb, J. Ronald Green, Richard Grupenhoff, James V. Hatch, Charles Higham, Val Holley, Martha Hunter, Helen Imburgia, Martin J. Keenan, Richard Koszarski, Jerren Lamb, Julius Lester, Anne Martin, Fern McBride, Joseph McBride, Grace McLain, Joe Mosbrook, Charles Musser, Karen P. Neuforth, Richard Papousek, James Robert Parish, Richard Porton, Marty Rubin, Nat Segaloff, Anthony Slide, Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, Peter “Hopper” Stone, Michael Tapper, Sister Francesca Thompson, David Thomson, Lawrence Toppman, Richard Vacca, Dana F. White, Allen Woll.

ESPECIALLY:
Matthew Bernstein, who stayed loyal and responsive to my every query; and Alice Veren, who coaxed me to visit South Dakota and the Micheaux Film Festival.

RESEARCH ASSISTANCE:
Brigitte Burkett, Richmond, Va.; Alfred Patton Davidson, York, Penn.; Bill Fagelson, Austin, Tx. and New York; Sherry Foresman, Des Moines, Ia.; Will Gartside, Madison, Wis.; Elizabeth A. Lane, Atchison, Kans.; Mary Troath, London, U.K.; Sam West, Lumberton, N.C.

ESPECIALLY:
Regula Ehrlich, who “covered” New Jersey, helping to fill in my portrait of Alice B. Russell—every bit as elusive as Micheaux—and offering her insights as well as research.

SCRIPTS AND SCREENINGS:
Pearl Bowser; The Micheaux Film Festival, Gregory, South Dakota; Motion Picture Commission Scripts and Censorship Files, New York State Archives, Albany, New York; Scott McGee, Turner Broadcasting System;
Lying Lips
courtesy of the Kenn Freeman papers, Schomburg Center for Reseach in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

ARCHIVES AND ORGANIZATIONS:
Alabama
: Yvonne Crumpler, Birmingham Public Library;
California
: Octavio Olvera, George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); Alva Moore Stevenson, UCLA Oral History Program; Denise Meyer, Contra Costa Public Library;
Delaware
: Sandi Pisarski, Delaware Division of Corporations, Dover; Renee Gimski, Wilmington Public Library;
Washington D.C.
: Jean Currie Church, Chief Librarian, and Joellen ElBashir, Curator of Manuscripts, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; George Diez,
Archives, Department of Education; Robert Ellis, Judicial Records, Old Military and Civil Records, National Archives and Records Administation (NARA); Richard Fusick and George R. Shaner, Old Military and Civil Records, Textual Archives Services Division, NARA; Maryellen Holley, Executive Director, Washington Press Club Foundation; Washingtonian Division, Washington, D.C., Public Library;
Georgia
: William A. Montgomery, Georgia Local and Family History Department, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, Ga.;
Illinois
: John Reinhardt, Supervisor, Inventory Control Section, Illinois State Archives; Pat Nunley, Illinois Regional Archives Depository, Special Collections, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Jan Miller, Carbondale Public Library; Martha Briggs and JoEllen Dickie, The Newberry Library, Chicago; Earl Calloway,
The Chicago Defender;
Yvette Richards, Archives, Clerk of the Circuit Court
Klain, Museum of Broadcasting, N.Y.C.; Richard Gelbke, Archives Specialist, NARA, Northeast Region, N.Y.C.; Mary Welsh, New Rochelle Public Library; Glen Island Care Center (formerly Woodland Nursing Home), New Rochelle; George T. Davis Funeral Home, New Rochelle; Greenwood Union Cemetery, Rye;
North Carolina
: Sheila Bumgarner, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library, Charlotte; Robert Johnson, the
Charlotte Post
; Lois D. Peterson, Clerk of Superior Court, Charlotte; Pat Taylor, Medical Records Department, Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte; Lawrence Toppman, the
Charlotte Observer;
Marylyn L. Williams, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department; Robeson County Public Library, Lumberton; Jane B. Hersch, Maxton Historical Society, Maxton; Information Services, State Library of North Carolina;
Ohio
: Anne Salsich, Western Reserve Historical Society Library and Archives, Cleveland; Evelyn M. Ward, Cleveland Public Library; John Ransom, Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, Fremont; Gail D. Lash, Registrar, and Jacqueline Brown, Archives, Wilberforce University, Wilberforce;
Pennsylvania
: John J. Slonaker, Pennsylvania State Archives; Patrick Connelly, Archives Specialist, NARA, Philadelphia;
South Carolina
: Marianne Cawley, Charleston County Public Library, Charleston; Susan Thoms, Spartanburg County Public Libraries, Spartanburg;
South Dakota
: Marvene Riis, South Dakota State Historical Society Archives, Pierre; Clerk of Courts, Tripp and Todd counties; Kristi Kafka, South Dakota Oral History Center, Institute of American Indian Studies, University of South Dakota;
Tennessee
: Edwin J. Best Jr., Research Library, Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville; Danette Welch, Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library System, Knoxville; Doris R. Martinson, Knox County Archives, East Tennessee Historical Center, Knoxville; Darla Brock, Archivist, Tennessee State Library, Nashville;
Texas
: Penny Clark, Tyrrell Historical Library, Beaumont; Carol Roark, Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library; Lisa K. Meisch, Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center, Liberty; Clarissa Chavira, San Antonio Public Library;
Virginia
: Motion Picture Censorship Board Records, Archives Research Services, The Library of Virginia, Richmond; Brenda A. Finley, Roanoke Public Library;
Wisconsin
: The Milwaukee Public Library; Angie Cope, American Geographical Society Library, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; The University of Wisconsin Library, Madison; Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.

All along I heard reports that the
Chicago Defender
was going to be historically indexed electronically, and indeed, after the final draft of this book was completed, Chicago's black newspaper, from 1910–1975, was made available online by the Black Studies Center via ProQuest. I picked up addditional detail and information at the eleventh hour from this invaluable resource.

ESPECIALLY:
Brenda Mizell of the Metropolis Public Library patiently responded to my endless questions, and guided me to people and places when I visited Micheaux's hometown. Finally, I couldn't have written this book without the resources and services of my home library at Marquette University. I would especially like to acknowledge the repeated assistance of the John P. Raynor Library Information Desk and Joan Sommer and her Interlibrary Loan staff.

It may seem a formality to thank my agent and editor, but Gloria Loomis has been representing me, staunchly, for as long as Calvert Morgan Jr. has been guiding and improving my books—going on twenty years.

And my family—my wife Tina, and three sons, Clancy, Bowie, and Sky—they are staunch, improving guides too.

My sources were numerous, and often they were itty-bitty items from this or that local library (or George P. Johnson's files). My itemization is selective. The emphasis is on primary sources, especially quotations from Micheaux or his correspondence. I haven't notated all the many snippets from film reviews or columns (Charlene B. Regester's book keeps track of entertainment-related items in four leading African-American newspapers), and scholars in general are cited from their listed articles or books.

The following published works and produced films were indispensable. Whether or not they are mentioned in the text, I referred to them again and again. The authors of these books and other listed articles pioneered the research, influenced my thinking, and inspired my task. I recommend these books for anyone interested in deeply studying Micheaux's films.

BOOKS:
Donald Bogle,
Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks
(Viking, 1973); Pearl Bowser and Louise Spence,
Writing Himself Into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences
(Rutgers University Press, 2000); Pearl Bowser, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser, eds.,
Oscar Micheaux & His Circle
(Indiana University Press, 2001); Thomas Cripps,
Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942
(Oxford University Press, 1977); Jane Gaines,
Fire and Desire: Mixed-Race Movies in the Silent Era
(University of Chicago Press, 2001); J. Ronald Green,
Straight Lick: The Cinema of Oscar Micheaux
(Indiana University Press, 2000); J. Ronald Green,
With a Crooked Stick—The Films of Oscar Micheaux
(Indiana University Press, 2004); Bernard L. Peterson, Jr.,
Profiles of African-American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816–1960
(Greenwood Press, 2001); Mark Reid,
Redefining Black Film
(University of California Press, 1993); Charlene B. Regester,
Black Entertainers in African-American Newspaper Articles, Volume 1
(McFarland, 2002); Henry T. Sampson,
Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films
(Scarecrow Press, 1995); Betti Carol VanEpps-Taylor,
Oscar Micheaux…Dakota Homesteader, Author, Pioneer Film Maker
(Dakota West, 1999); Earl James Young Jr.,
The Life and Work of Oscar Micheaux
(KMT Publications, 2002).

DOCUMENTARY FILMS:
In Black & White
(writers, Russ Karel, Gordon Parks; director, Russ Karel, 1992);
Midnight Ramble
(writer, Clyde Taylor; directors, Bestor Cram and Pearl Bowser, 1994);
Oscar Micheaux: Film Pioneer
(Carol Munday Lawrence, writer and producer; director Robert N. Zagone, 1981).

CHAPTER ONE:
1884–1900

My portrait of Oscar Micheaux (OM) and his early life, up through chapter 8, relies heavily on his quasi-autobiographical novels: especially
The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer,
but also
The Forged Note, The Homesteader,
and
The Wind From Nowhere.
This may be an arguable approach, but again and again, cross-referencing the novels with my own research to compare and overlap his story with history and events (right down to incidental detail mentioned in passing), I found that his fictional versions conformed to the known facts.

Karen P. Neuforth of Great Bend, Kansas, is the acknowledged expert on OM's geneaology. I drew on her article “GENERATIONS: The Family and Ancestry of Oscar Micheaux,” available on the excellent Micheaux website www.shorock.com—maintained by Don Shorock—and on findings that she is constantly updating. Right up to the end of my work she was correcting errors and assumptions and providing new detail. Her recent exhumation of OM's World War I draft registration records, for example, supplied not only another document to affirm the existence of “Sarah Micheaux,” but also pinpointed the color of OM's eyes (brown).

It should be noted that an official birth certificate for OM has never been located, which is curious, considering that the births of other Micheaux children are registered on the county level in Illinois. I turned the pages of musty record books in the Massac County courthouse without finding his name in any variant spelling. (Remembering that OM was born the day after the New Year, perhaps his mother was visiting relatives in Kentucky over the Christmas holidays when she gave birth.) Indeed, his year of birth varies in early records. His WWI draft registration, for example, states that he was thirty-eight in 1918, suggesting that he was born in 1880, not 1884. Some sources give his middle name as “Devereaux,” but, to the best of my knowledge, that name does not appear on any known legal, government, or employment record.

“Could quote profusely from [Booker T.] Washington…” is Carlton Moss (CM) from “Remembering Oscar Micheaux,” Souvenir Program, the 13th Black Annual Filmmakers Hall of Fame Oscar Micheaux Awards, 1986. Moss is quoted principally from this essay and Pearl Bowser's oral history, though he was also interviewed for Earl James Young Jr.'s book.

“Chocolate-colored” is from “Hollywood in the Bronx,”
Time
(January 29, 1940).

“His tongue was so red…” is Agnes Becker from the Institute of American Indian Studies, the South Dakota Oral History Project (June 18, 1973, interview by Steve Plummer). “A Negro…unmistable [sic: unmistakably] so” is George P. Johnson (GPJ) from one of the undated “Oscar Mitcheux” synopses among his voluminous papers.

Other articles and books: T. V. Glass,
Metropolis City Directory and Business Advertiser for Southern Illinois for 1870, With a Brief History of Metropolis City
(Robert Clarke & Co., 1870); George W. May,
Historical Papers on Massac County, Illinois
(Turner, 1990); George W. May,
Massac Biographies
(Bookmasters, 1998); Robert L. McCaul,
The Black Struggle for Public Schooling in Nineteenth-Century Illinois
(Southern Illinois University Press, 1987); Claude F. Oubre,
Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership
(Louisana State University Press, 1978); O. J. Page,
History of Massac County, Illinois, With Life Sketches and Portraits
(Journal-Republican, 1900); O. J. Page, Superintendent, “Read, Reflect, Preserve. Metropolis High School
Course of Study, 1896–97” (Journal-Republican, 1896); Edgar F. Raines, “The Ku Klux Klan in Illinois, 1867–1875,”
Illinois Historical Journal
(Vol. 78, No. 1, 1985); Joshua M. Reynolds, County Superintendent, “1899 Annual Report of the Condition of the Common Schools in the County of Massac.”

CHAPTER TWO:
1900–1904

The Pullman Company archives are on deposit at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The librarians seemed faintly amused at my hope that I might stumble upon OM's ancient personnel records—the proverbial needle in a haystack of microfilm—but luck was with me. I am grateful to Martha Briggs of the library for helping to interpret the sometimes obscure company notations.

Other articles and books: Robin F. Bachin,
Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890–1919
(University of Chicago Press, 2004); St. Clair Drake,
Black Metropolis
(Harcourt, 1945); Glen E. Holt and Dominic A. Pacyga,
Chicago: A Historical Guide to the Neighborhoods
(Chicago Historical Society, 1979); Jack Santino,
Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle
(University of Illinois Press, 1989).

CHAPTER THREE:
1904–1906

Much of the hard grind of perusing vintage Gregory and Tripp counties newspapers and microfilm, pinpointing mention of OM, and correlating his homesteading experiences with local events and citizens was done for earlier papers, articles, or books by South Dakota historians and Micheaux scholars, including (among others) Lee Arlie Barry, Leathern Dorsey, Chester J. Fontenot Jr., Richard Papousek, Betti Carol VanEpps-Taylor, and Joseph Young.

VanEpps-Taylor's exceptional 1991 biography of the race-picture pioneer, which concentrates on the prefilm years and especially on the South Dakota period of OM's life, broke all kinds of ground in terms of sources and background. As for groundbreaking, literally, I would know very little about different kinds of soil, blades, plows, or horses, without the benefit of her book. I also drew from her supplemental paper “A View from the Catbird Seat: Oscar Micheaux and the Opening of the Rosebud,” delivered at the Oscar Micheaux Film Fesitval in 2004, where I had the pleasure of meeting VanEpps-Taylor. We kept in touch, and she was gracious enough to read drafts of early chapters of this book, offering pointers.

All land data and description of OM's South Dakota holdings comes from Department of the Interior records held by the National Archives and Records Administration.

“The soil of these plains…” is Lewis and Clark as quoted in Doane Robinson's informative
A Brief History of South Dakota
(American Book Company, 1905).

As far as I know, there is no book on the Jackson patriarch—onetime Iowa governor Frank D. Jackson—or his three sons. But the Jackson brothers turn up in many South Dakota chronicles, including the ones listed here; my account of the Jacksons, especially Ernest Jackson, as their lives overlapped OM's, is patched together from the South Dakota histories listed here and scattered newspaper items. I learned about
Marvin Hughitt from H. Roger Grant's article in
The Encylopedia of American Business History and Biography
(Keith L. Bryant Jr., ed., Facts on File, 1988).

“You can't find a better metaphor…” is Don Coonen from a letter quoted in Janis Hebert's excellent “Oscar Micheaux: A Black Pioneer,”
South Dakota Review
(Winter 1973–74).

Other articles and books: Opie Chambers, “The Early History of Rosebud County,”
A Rosebud Review
(July 1984); “Dallas, South Dakota: The End of the Line,” which includes “Oscar Micheaux” by Lee Arlie Barry (Dallas Historical Society, 1977); Arlene Elder, “Oscar Micheaux: The Melting Pot on the Plains,”
The Old Northwest
(September 1976);
The Gregory Advocate,
“Special 2004 Double Issue: The First Hundred Years,” Number One: 1904–1914, and Number Two: 1915–1924; Adeline S. Gnirk,
The Saga of Ponca Land
(Gregory County Historical Society, 1979);
The History of Tripp County, South Dakota
(Pine Hill Press, 1984); Ried Holien, “The Homesteader,”
South Dakota Magazine
(July/August 1998) F. H. Jackson, “Homesteading on the Rosebud,”
A Rosebud Review
(July 1984); Gladys Whitehorn Jorgensen,
Before Homesteads in Tripp County and The Rosebud
(Pine Hill Press, 1974); Paula M. Nelson,
After the West Was Won: Homesteaders and Town Buildiers in Western South Dakota, 1900–1917
(University of Iowa Press, 1986); “Tripp County, South Dakota, 1909–1984, Diamond Jubilee” (Pine Hill Press, 1984).

CHAPTER FOUR:
1906–1908

“He'd say ‘Nope', he wouldn't…” is Dick Siler from the Institute of American Indian Studies, the South Dakota Oral History Project (July 27, 1973, interview by Steve Pummer). “Eight horses pulling…” is Don Coonen from
South Dakota Review.

CHAPTER FIVE:
1908–1909

“Colorful character…etc.,” the anecdotes about OM's grandmother and sister, are credited in a footnote of VanEpps-Taylor's biography to an item in the
Gregory Times Advocate
(January 20, 1910), from a paper presented by Richard Papousek at the 1998 Micheaux Film Festival.

OM'S “WHERE THE NEGRO FAILS
…” is on the front page of the
Chicago Defender
(March 19, 1910). This is the first conspicuous public use of the spelling “Micheaux,” which the entire family also adopted around this time. When the
Gregory Times Advocate
reported Micheaux's marriage, just a month later (see chapter 6), it used the new spelling. There are any number of possible explanations: “Micheaux” may have been the correct spelling all along, for example, but simply misspelled by indifferent white record-keepers; or it's also possible that the family had talked it over and decided to agree on a new spelling, which harked back either to forebears or its slaveholding past. This is one of many mysteries about Micheaux that persists. In any case, it seems clear he added the
e,
and adopted the new spelling, while a homesteader in 1910.

The
Chicago Defender
reported the marriage of OM and “Miss Orlean McCracken, daughter of Elder McCracken” on April 23, 1910.

For background on the
Chicago Defender
and its publisher I referred to Roi Ottley's
The Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S. Abbott
(Regnery, 1955).

For Lew Dockstader and minstrelsy I consulted John Strausbaugh's thoughtful
Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imagination in American Popular Culture
(Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006).

CHAPTER SIX:
1909–1912

“A happy journey…” is from the
Gregory Times Advocate
(April 27, 1910). “
MR. OSCAR MICHEAUX IN CITY
…” is from the front page of the
Chicago Defender
(April 29, 1911), and “
COLORED AMERICANS TOO SLOW
…” is from the front page of the
Defender
(October 28, 1911).

For background on Dr. U. G. Dailey, I read
The Scholar and the Scalpel: The Life Story of Ulysses Grant Dailey
by Donald Preston (Afro-Am Publishing, 1966).

CHAPTER SEVEN:
1912–1914

“I personally wrote the Chapter V…etc.,” is from “an original copy of the first printing of
The Conquest,
” in the possession of Micheaux Film Festival founder Richard Papousek, according to a footnote in
With a Crooked Stick—The Films of Oscar Micheaux.