In this chapter, To “Encourage and Uplift”: Entrepreneurial Uplift Cinema, the author, Allyson Fields, traces filmmaking practices of several Black filmmaking entrepreneurs in Chicago and NYC. She focuses on William Foster, Peter P. Jones and Hunter C. Haynes to demonstrate how Black entrepreneurs used moving picture technology and how it differs from those working in the South. She argues that entrepreneurial filmmakers showed African American uplift and presented them as people who were modern, civically engaged individuals. Underlying themes in many of these films were of social and economic progress as well as possibility. These entrepreneurs invested in the progress of race by supporting the African American motion picture industry. Many black film companies emerged in the late 1910s, but only a few were able to produce and distribute a completed film because competition was tough as well as the growing tensions between black and white filmmakers. Films were seen as an effective and economical way of demonstrating African American culture and advancements.
Black entrepreneurs in the early 20th century were expected to have the social responsibility to create social impact. The burden of representation fell on Black business men and women to counteract image of their whole race because they were able to make money and use cinema as a tool for uplift. Business men and women were involved because they were economically autonomous and used uplift rhetoric. Moving pictures once were known to have racist depictions and stereotypes which further marginalized people.Uplift filmmaking entrepreneurs worked primarily within black communities making films for black audiences. They wanted to counteract the racist images of the Black people and their community, and instead showing them as respectable, economically independent, civic-engaged individuals in society. The uplift model emphasized self-help, mutual progress and economic autonomy (independence).
Here are a few entrepreneurs who made a lasting impact in their community and in Black Uplift Cinema:
- William Foster: journalist; owner of a music publishing company; Owner of Foster Photoplay Company
- The Railroad Porter was Foster’s first fictitious film
- Aimed for positive representation of black life to aspire audience
- He was known, arguably, as the first African American to mobilize motion picture technology for entrepreneurial purposes but was definitely one of the earliest filmmakers to promote self-determined African American image on the big screens while also owning his own businesses
- He produced films incorporating milestones in Black Chicagoan life and key social events in the South(both actualities [events, actual stories] and fiction): comedies and detective stories designed for Black audiences
- He called for race investment in moving picture and promoted uplift expectations of humility
- He started the “Foster Movement” in race film production which addressed Black audience as participants in larger cultural scheme modeled on uplift ideals
- Peter P. Jones: famous African American studio photographer who promoted upward mobility in the black community, especially among the Black elite
- His photo postcards counteracted lynching scenes by showing civic belonging and portrayed subjects with dignity and respectability
- Retired from studio photography in 1912 and started moving picture venture in 1914
- His first narrative film he worked with Alfred Anderson about the Eighth Regiment (African American soldiers) which served in the Spanish-American War in 1898 (assert civic pride and duty, show bravery and heroism)
- His films aimed to inspire pride and sense of belonging in the community (just like his photographs)
- Hunter C. Haynes: NYC businessman, established business in shaving supplies enterprise (secondhand razors to manufacturing of razor strops); founder of the Haynes Advertising Agency and member of the National Negro Press Associati
- Film: Notable Negroes and Their Achievements was presented as an educational film of AA economic achievements in property and business
- His comedies consisted of themes on clashing cultures and socioeconomic class
- In 1913, he began working for white-owned Afro-American Film Company: produced films with “real negro characters” and wanted to show “the rapid progress of the negro in every field of human activity”
- Later he opened his own film studio
The idea of uplift cinema is quite intriguing. While it may have simultaneously sought to provide blacks with a sense of ability, in terms of reaching for personal achievement, I feel the target audience really should have been more general, if they aimed to dispel the stereotypes that were being propagated by other filmmakers. My assumption would be that those within the African American community were already aware of their own status and socio-economic obstacles. By typically employing an all-black cast and placing them in roles seen as reserved for more privileged (perhaps white) members of society, it may have instilled the idea of opportunity and upward mobility, but at the same time, I feel like it primarily offered only a range of preset goals that resulted in economic autonomy, rather than inviting awareness of opportunity to develop a sense of individuality that would supercede those institutional and artificial boundaries.
The idea of the uplift model is really interesting, especially when you consider that a lot of times the Black filmmakers were making these films not for a Black audience but for a white audience. They felt the need to go against typical stereotypes that Black characters exhibited in most film and show more respectable characteristics that matched how the community wanted to be seen and they saw film as the best medium to do that. In my opinion, it seems as though film was a really difficult medium to work with because it was so tough to get funding and distribution; so I wonder if they would have had greater success using another medium such as print.
I agree with the first comment on how the target audiences should’ve been more general. It would only increase the tension between the blacks and the whites otherwise. Because such films would surely attract the whole black community, I’m in doubt if the filmmakers’ primary concern was to support racial equality.
The contributions of these social movers were so important to this era. The fact that they were so unyielding about shedding a more positive light on their community with the uplift mode clearly indicates their underlying passions about enacting permanent societal change. I like that the timeline clearly indicates how each individual hones in on a number of diverse people groups as the target audiences for these films– it represents how dedicated they were to sharing their community’s reality with members of all social fronts.