| The Black King | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Bud Pollard |
| Written by | Morris M. Levinson & Donald Heywood [1] |
| Starring |
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| Edited by | Dal Clawson |
| Distributed by | Southland Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 72 minutes [1] [3] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Black King is a comedy-drama [1] 1932 race film chronicling the rise and fall of a fictionalized charismatic leader of a back-to-Africa movement, modeled on the life of Marcus Garvey. The film was directed by Bud Pollard. [4]
The Black King chronicles the rise and fall of a fictionalized charismatic leader of a back-to-Africa movement, satirizing the life of Marcus Garvey. [4] [5] The film explores numerous critiques of Garvey's movement, including the lack of knowledge about Africa, the presumptuousness in making plans for future development and government in Africa without consultation of people already there, and conflicts between lighter skinned and darker skinned African Americans. [5] While Garvey was a primarily a political leader with religious opinions, his counterpart in the film was primarily a preacher and religious leader. [6] [5] The film was intended to resonate with the audience's pre-existing disillusionment with Garvey. [4]
The Black King was written as a stage play by Donald Heywood and plans were publicly announced to produce it on Broadway directed by Russian choreographer Léonide Massine. This never took place. Instead, Heywood's story was adapted by Morris M. Levinson and it was produced as a film by Southland Pictures under white director Bud Pollard in 1932. [7] The film was re-released in the 1940s under the title, Harlem Big Shot. [5]
Daniel J. Leab, a 1975 commentator, rates it well as entertainment, saying it has "a more carefully plotted storyline than most other black genre films of its time". [5] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1988 that despite the film's small budget, the film has "considerable scope and energy ... largely due to a dynamic, brutally comic burlesque of ... [lead actor] A. B. Comathiere". [4]
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, through which he declared himself Provisional President of Africa. Garvey was ideologically a black nationalist and Pan-Africanist. His ideas came to be known as Garveyism.
The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and his then-wife Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-African organization enjoyed its greatest strength in the 1920s, and was influential prior to Garvey's deportation to Jamaica in 1927. After that its prestige and influence declined, but it had a strong influence on African-American history and development. The UNIA was said to be "unquestionably, the most influential anticolonial organization in Jamaica prior to 1938," according to Honor Ford-Smith.
Pan-African colours is a term that may refer to two different sets of colours:
Garveyism is an aspect of black nationalism that refers to the economic, racial and political policies of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey.
Black separatism is a separatist political movement that seeks separate economic and cultural development for those of African descent in societies, particularly in the United States. Black separatism stems from the idea of racial solidarity, and it also implies that black people should organize themselves on the basis of their common skin color, their race, culture, and African heritage. There were a total of 255 black separatist groups recorded in the United States as of 2019.
Leonard Percival Howell, also known as The Gong or G. G. Maragh, was a Jamaican religious figure. According to his biographer Hélène Lee, Howell was born into an Anglican family. He was one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement, and is known by many as The First Rasta.
The Black Star Line (1919−1922) was a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and other members of the UNIA. The shipping line was created to facilitate the transportation of goods and eventually African Americans throughout the African global economy. It derived its name from the White Star Line, a line whose success Garvey felt he could duplicate. The Black Star Line became a key part of Garvey's contribution to the Back-to-Africa movement, but it was mostly unsuccessful, partly due to infiltration by FBI agents. It was only one among many businesses which the UNIA originated, such as the Universal Printing House, Negro Factories Corporation, and the widely distributed and highly successful Negro World weekly newspaper.
Amy Euphemia Jacques Garvey was a Jamaican-born journalist and activist. She was the second wife of Marcus Garvey. She was one of the pioneering female Black journalists and publishers of the 20th century.
Queen Mother Moore was an African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist who was friends with such civil rights leaders as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson. She was a figure in the American Civil Rights Movement and a founder of the Republic of New Afrika. Dr. Delois Blakely was her assistant for 20 years. Blakely was later enstooled in Ghana as a Nana.
Amy Ashwood Garvey was a Jamaican Pan-Africanist activist. She was a director of the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation, and along with her former husband Marcus Garvey she founded the Negro World newspaper.
Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.
Lewis H. Michaux was a Harlem bookseller and civil rights activist. Between 1932 and 1974 he owned the African National Memorial Bookstore in Harlem, New York City, one of the most prominent African-American bookstores in the country.
The Peace Movement of Ethiopia was an African-American organization based in Chicago, Illinois. It was active in the 1930s and 1940s, and promoted the repatriation of African Americans to the African continent, especially Liberia. They were affiliated with the Black Dragon Society.
Laura Adorkor Kofi, commonly known as Mother Kofi, was a Ghanaian minister and activist associated with the Universal Negro Improvement Association. She was assassinated while preaching in Miami, Florida.
Daniel Joseph Leab was an American historian of 20th-century history. He made significant academic contributions to fields of American labor unions and anti-Communism. He was long-time editor of three journals and magazines.
Donald Heywood was a Trinidadian-born American songwriter, composer, writer and director. He composed for "I'm Coming Virginia" in 1926, which became a hit for Ethel Waters. He became a prominent figure in black musical theater, and produced scores for films such as Moon Over Harlem (1939) and Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941).
James G. Spady was an American Book Award-winning writer, historian, and journalist. Over his fifty-year career, Spady authored and edited numerous books, worked in radio, television, and film, wrote hundreds of newspaper articles for various print media, and received the National Newspaper Publishers Association's Meritorious Award.
A. B. DeComathiere was an actor in the United States. He had a leading role in The Brute (1920). He also starred in the race film The Black King (1932), a satire of Marcus Garvey and his followers.
The Rastafari movement developed out of the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, in which over ten million Africans were enslaved and transported to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Once there, they were sold to European planters and forced to work on the plantations. Around a third of these transported Africans were relocated in the Caribbean, with under 700,000 being settled in Jamaica. In 1834, slavery in Jamaica was abolished after the British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Racial prejudice nevertheless remained prevalent across Jamaican society. The overwhelming majority of Jamaica's legislative council was white throughout the 19th century, and those of African descent were treated as second-class citizens.