Black Entertainment History, Part IV

Why Black entertainment history?

It is my favorite writing time of the year. I get to write about African and African American history for Black History Month. I hope that this teaches and encourages readers to seek out more information than just my few twenty-eight highlights. Black history is everyone’s history. In the Western Hemisphere, our footprint is on the cornerstone of nearly all aspects of entertainment, for better or worse.

All genres of modern American music were directly influenced, if not completely invented, by Black folks. Black folks have been in mainstream theater and cinema for over a century, whether begrudgingly taking on roles that perpetuate negative stereotypes or taking a risk and carving out space to depict themselves truthfully. For this reason, I plan to highlight Black people’s contributions to entertainment.

THERESA ANN SOUDERS (1897-1995) (professionally known as TRESSIE SOUDERS)

is credited with being the first Black American woman to write and direct a feature film. Souders was born and raised in Frankfort, Kansas. In 1918 she moved to Kansas City, Missouri upon her high school graduation to work as a house cleaner, her primary career. 1918 is also the year she played a role in a morality play called Every Negro.

Little is known about all of Souders’ other acting credits or her transition from stage to film, but in January 1922, she partnered with the Afro-American Film Exhibitors Company to distribute her film A Woman’s Error. Billboard Magazine’s paid announcement about the film stated, “A Woman’s Error was the first of its kind to be produced by a young woman of our race and has been passed on by the critics as a picture true to Negro life.” Unfortunately, the movie has been lost to time, as prints cannot be located. Regardless, she did blaze a trail, as in the same year, Maria P. Williams started producing and starring in her own film that would be released in 1923.

In the mid-1920s Souders moved from Kansas City to Los Angeles. She continued to work as a domestic worker, but it is presumed she moved to further pursue a career in the film industry as well. In Los Angeles, she married and divorced, and then by 1940 she moved to San Francisco where she would remain. She passed away in 1995 just shy of her 98^th birthday. Though she is only credited with one film, Tressie Souders’ achievement became an inspiration for other Black women. In 2001 the International Black Women’s Film Festival (IBWFF) was founded in San Francisco to honor, support, and preserve film by or featuring Black people in positive roles. They also aim to provide resources, training, and guidance to aspirational filmmakers. The IBWFF also established the Tressie Souders Awards (now called the Black Laurel Awards) and launched a one-issue print of Tressie Magazine.

BLAXPLOITATION

is a genre of film that emerged and exploded throughout the 1970s. Like their race film predecessors, blaxploitation films starred Black actors cast in roles of power. Unlike race films, though, blaxploitation films would be set in ghettoized areas with main characters who may not have “respectable” social statuses. Characters would be anything from cops to pimps and drug dealers. Black stereotypes were often exaggerated or satirized for the sake of entertainment.

“Blaxploitation” is a portmanteau of “Black” and “Exploitation,” the latter being a genre of film that leaned heavily into the limits of general decency. They were known for abundant use of graphic violence, nudity, drug use, and little plot. While blaxploitation also contained these elements, they would also contain sociopolitical messages. Melvin van Peebles’ 1971 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Ivan Dixon’s 1973 The Spook Who Sat by the Door were heavily influenced by the rise of the Black Power Movement and depicted ideas like solidarity and Black empowerment. Not all films would be as heavy or serious in blaxploitation, as comedy, action, revenge, horror, and musicals were also subgenres. Regardless of the plots of the films, the main characters were always Black and wielded their autonomy.

Blaxploitation films were the first mainstream films to show Black main characters actively disrespecting or slapping white antagonists since Sidney Poitier. Though as sexist as most exploitation films were, Pam Grier (Friday Foster, Coffy, Foxy Brown) and Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones) would emerge as bona fide femme action heroes. They took on roles that depicted them fighting (and often killing) racist and misogynist villains to avenge their loved ones or to gain power over a system that tried to kill them.

Blaxploitation launched the careers of Richard Roundtree, Fred Williamson, Rudy Ray Moore, and Samuel L. Jackson. Accompanying music to the genre would put musicians like Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield on the map. Though the empowerment messages of early blaxploitation were diluted when Hollywood made it more mainstream, its legacy and influence can be seen in music and fashion, as artists often emulate the people and styles depicted on screen.

ROBERT TOWNSEND (b. 1957)

is a legendary Chicago-born writer, producer, director, comedian, and actor who has been pivotal cog in Hollywood the background and foreground, giving opportunities to Black entertainers for over 40 years. Townsend was always an entertainer, practicing his celebrity impersonations on his family and classmate. When he grew up, he would test his mettle as a comedian career in New York and Hollywood, trying out for Saturday Night Live and performing on a comedy special for Rodney Dangerfield. He also landed minor roles in 1984’s A Soldier’s Story alongside Denzel Washington and Streets of Fire.

In 1987, Townsend got behind the camera to direct his first film Eddie Murphy: Raw, the filming of Murphy’s live concert performance. Later in the year, he wrote, produced, and self-financed his second film, Hollywood Shuffle, an acclaimed satirical look at the obstacles and sacrifices Black performers must endure to get into the film industry. In 1991, he directed and starred in The Five Heartbeats, a drama based loosely on the lives of the Dells. Then in 1993, he directed and starred in The Meteor Man, a comedy that may also be the first mainstream Black superhero film. Townsend would continue to write and direct over 30 films and television series, including The Parent ‘Hood, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, a Natalie Cole biopic, and episodes of the CW series Black Lightning and The Wonder Years. In all his projects, Townsend’s goal is to lampoon negative aspects of life in the Black community while also showing that everyone’s life, no matter where they are socially, is worthy of respect.

AVA DUVERNAY (b. 1972)

is a screenwriter, director, producer, and film marketer. She was the eldest of five children, born in Long Beach, California and would split her youth between Compton and her father’s family in Lowndes County, Alabama. DuVernay credits her aunt Denise with encouraging her to lean into her art and creativity. The DuVernay family was always socially conscious and saw art as a vehicle for activism, with her mother often reminding her to “say something through the arts.”

DuVernay graduated from UCLA in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts in both English and African American Studies. She started work as a publicist for FOX and Savoy Pictures, and after four years she started her own agency, The DuVernay Agency, later known as DVA Media plus Marketing. DuVernay’s directorial debut was the 2008 documentary This Is the Life, a film about the Good Life Café in the 1990s.

Two years later she wrote, produced, and directed the drama I Will Follow, a film she produced on a $50,000 budget. The film garnered Duvernay the 2011 Best Screenplay award from the African American Film Critics Association. That same year, she would co-found the African American Film Festival Releasing Movement (later renamed ARRAY), a consortium dedicated to promoting and distributing independent films by Black people. DuVernay wrote, directed, and/or produced over thirty films and television shows.

She is the first Black woman to win the Best Director prize at Sundance Film Festival for her film Middle of Nowhere, and first Black woman to receive Best Director nomination at the Golden Globes and Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards for 2014’s Selma. She also received multiple awards for the Netflix documentary 13^th, about the loophole in the 13^th Amendment that keeps slavery legal in the United States. Her drama mini-series When They See Us, about the Exonerated Five, garnered twenty-three million views in its first month and 16 Emmy nominations. DuVernay’s latest released project is the sci-fi series Naomi, based on the Black girl superhero of the same name. She continues to bring stories about by and about Black people to the screen, both real and fictional.

JO-ISSA RAE DIOP (b. 1985) (professionally known as ISSA RAE)

is a writer, producer, and actor. The Los Angeles native of Senegalese descent was raised in Dakar, Senegal; Potomac, Maryland; and Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Stanford University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies, Rae moved to New York City to start a fellowship at The Public Theater and took classes at the New York Film Theater.

In 2011 she launched a widely popular web series call Awkward Black Girl, a semi-autobiographical comedy about a woman and her interactions with her co-workers and personal relationships. The series was popular for its portrayal of Black woman outside of the typical Hollywood stereotypical depictions. Awkward Black Girl would become so popular that she would premiere its second season on Pharrell Williams’ YouTube channel iamOther. It won a Shorty Award in 2013 for Best Web Show.

That same year Rae started collaborating with producer Larry Wilmore on a pilot for HBO that would eventually become the 2016 series Insecure. Simultaneously, she was working on her memoir, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, which was published in 2015 and became a New York Times bestseller. Throughout this time, Rae continued to act in more than just Insecure, landing lead roles in the romance film The Photograph with Lakeith Stanfield and the romantic comedy The Lovebirds opposite Kumail Nanjani. She was also an optional additional voice for Google assistant from 2019 to 2021.

Rae will also be the voice of Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman in the upcoming animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. In 2021, she signed a five-year film and television deal with Warner Media, and launched her own record label, Raedio, partnered with Atlantic Records. On all her platforms, Issa Rae put in effort to highlight Black artists, and especially young and upcoming ones, be they fashion designers, musicians, actors, or caterers. She famously said on the 2017 Emmy Awards red carpet that she is “rooting for everybody Black”, and she puts her money where her mouth is.

LARRY WILMORE (b. 1961)

is an actor, comedian, writer, producer, and political commentator who has dedicated his career to getting more Black artists into the limelight in Hollywood and beyond. Most people recognize him as The Daily Show’s “senior Black correspondent” during the Jon Stewart years and host of The Nightly Show. However, he is also responsible for co-writing or producing a dozen shows that focus on Black life, including In Living Color, Sister Sister, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Bernie Mac Show, The PJs, Black-ish, and Insecure (co-creator). He also starred in and co-wrote episodes of the US version of The Office.

Wilmore is a Los Angeles, California native who grew up in a suburban household in Pomona. His family is originally from Evanston, Illinois. When he was young, he was deeply interested in science, sci-fi, and magic, all of which would bear out in his comedy, as he dropped out of college to pursue a stand-up career. His routine was an anomaly, because in the 1980s, Black comedians were expected to carry a certain stereotypical bravado, but Wilmore leaned into his own personality as a proud Black nerd.

His first acting role was in 1983 as a police officer on The Facts of Life. He started work behind the scenes as a writer for the talk show Into the Night, and eventually on the Keenon Ivory Wayans sketch show In Living Color. His success there led to more writing and producing opportunities, including Sister, Sister, which launched Tia and Tamara Mowry’s careers and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which bolstered Will Smith’s acting career and showed that he is adept at both comedic and dramatic roles. Wilmore co-created the Eddie Murphy animated comedy The PJs. His most successful show that he produced was The Bernie Mac Show, a semi-autobiographical sitcom about comedian Bernie Mac. For his work on the show, Wilmore received a Peabody Award and an Emmy.

Never shying away from politics, Wilmore would become a regular correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and eventually have his own show, The Nightly Show, a comedic political commentary show that featured special guests and a regular round table of comedians, including Robin Thede, who would create the HBO sketch show A Black Lady Sketch Show. After The Nightly Show was cancelled, he assisted Issa Rae in the creation of the comedy-drama series Insecure. He was also still executive producing Black-ish and Grown-Ish for NBC and Freeform respectively. Moreover, Wilmore hosts the podcast Black on the Air, where he has discussions about politics and pop culture with entertainers, journalists, and political figures, even ones with whom he does not agree.

MARSAI MARTIN (b. 2004)

is an actor and producer. She is most famous for her role as daughter Diane in the TV series Black-ish. The Plano, Texas native started her career at age 5 when her parents sent her headshots to entertainment agencies, which landed her a role in a Choice Hotel national advertising campaign. The whole family moved to Hollywood to support her career. Martin’s big break was landing the Diane Johnson role in Black-ish, and her star continues to rise beyond it.

Besides winning 7 NAACP Image awards for her performance in the series, a 13-year-old Martin also took on the role of executive producer for the 2019 film Little, making her the youngest person ever to produce a movie in Hollywood. Though the comedy did not receive much widespread attention, it received two awards in the 2020 NAACP Image Awards. With Black-ish wrapping up its final season, Martin has a slate of future projects lined up behind and in front of the camera. She is only seventeen.

About Chris Thompson

About Little Known Facts About (Black) American History

Little Known Facts About (Black) American History is an annual blog campaign curated by 540WMain that has a mission to promote and share little known facts about Black Americans everyday throughout the month of February. Now in its 5th year the campaign highlights the life and work of past and present day Black Americans that are overlooked or underrepresented in our conversations about American history.