Oscar Micheaux: 1884-1951

Oscar Micheaux was an author, film director, and independent producer of more than 40 motion pictures between 1919 and 1948. As America’s first major African-American filmmaker, Micheaux is considered by many as the forerunner of Tyler Perry and Spike Lee.

Oscar Micheaux’s films portrayed racial injustice suffered by African Americans during his era. In addition to groundbreaking artistic work, Micheaux was a pioneer homesteader who, under the government’s 1904 Homestead Act, acquired free land in South Dakota and settled there.

The son of a Kentucky slave, Micheaux was born on a farm in Metropolis, where he spent his first 17 years and received his formal education while attending St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.

In addition to annual film festivals that screen Micheaux’s films nationwide, he is remembered with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, a U.S. Postage stamp, and a special exhibition wing in the Academy of Motion Pictures. North Carolina’s Duke University has an arts society named for Oscar Micheaux as well. He was the subject of the 2014 TV documentary Black Czar of Hollywood.

In 2021, Oscar Micheaux, the Superhero of Black Filmmaking, a biographical movie about Oscar Micheaux featuring actor Morgan Freeman, rap icon Chuck D, and Turner Classic Movie Hostess Jacqueline Stewart, aired on HBO Max and the Turner Classic Movie channel. Micheaux died in 1951 and is buried in Great Bend Cemetery, Great Bend, Kansas.