Plot
In Chicago, Edith Duval has become powerful in the African-American community, mostly because she came into possession of a South Chicago mansion where she was once a servant; the white family that owned the mansion abandoned it when blacks started moving into the neighborhood. She is in love with Jean Baptiste, but she rejects his idealism and he is at odds with her cynicism. Edith wants to convert the mansion into a speakeasy and nightclub.
Baptiste buys land in South Dakota and becomes a successful rancher. Five years into his time there, he falls in love with young Agnes Stewart. He considers the situation hopeless because Agnes is white and although she accepts him, he feels as though they won't work together as a couple. After he leaves the area, Agnes's father reveals to her that her late mother, who is deceased, was of Ethiopian ancestry and thus, Agnes is part black.
Fleeing back to Chicago to escape the relationship, which he believes is doomed, the former teetotaler Baptiste returns to Edith's club, her liquor and her charms. They plan to marry, but her former lover, an Ethiopian named Jango, appears, sneaks into Edith's room and complains of how she has ruined him. After he threatens suicide, she hands him a gun as a gesture of contempt. Instead of killing himself, he kills her. Baptiste is initially suspected of the murder but is cleared when a witness comes forward and confirms overhearing Jango and Edith arguing.
Back in South Dakota, Agnes reads in the newspaper on Baptiste being accused of murder and goes out of her way to Chicago to help him. She arrives at City Hall just as he is cleared by the district attorney. After being reunited, they return to South Dakota.
Within Our Gates is a 1920 American silent race drama film produced, written and directed by Oscar Micheaux. The film portrays the contemporary racial situation in the United States during the early twentieth century, the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the Great Migration of blacks to cities of the North and Midwest, and the emergence of the "New Negro".
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (; was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled by black filmmakers, Micheaux is regarded as the first major African-American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race films, and has been described as "the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century". He produced both silent films and sound films.
Marie-Anne Lagimodière was a French-Canadian woman noted as both the grandmother of Louis Riel, and as the first woman of European descent to travel to and settle in what is now Western Canada.
Evelyn Preer, was an African American pioneering screen and stage actress, and jazz and blues singer in Hollywood during the late-1910s through the early 1930s. Preer was known within the Black community as "The First Lady of the Screen."
Anita Stewart was an American actress and film producer of the early silent film era.
Dixie Lee was an American actress, dancer, and singer. She was the first wife of singer Bing Crosby.
The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produced. Of these, fewer than one hundred remain. Because race films were produced outside the Hollywood studio system, they were largely forgotten by mainstream film historians until they resurfaced in the 1980s on the BET cable network. In their day, race films were very popular among African-American theatergoers. Their influence continues to be felt in cinema and television marketed to African-Americans.
The Homesteader (1919) is a lost black-and-white silent film by African-American author and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. The film is based on his novel inspired by his experiences.
Alice Burton Russell was an African-American actress, producer, and the wife of director Oscar Micheaux. She appeared in several films directed by her husband.
Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, in her teens, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American people and contributing to the expedition's knowledge of natural history in different regions.
To Save Her Soul is a 1909 American short silent drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Mary Pickford. The film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey when many of the early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based there at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Betrayal is a 1948 American race film written, produced, and directed by Oscar Micheaux. He adapted it from his 1943 novel The Wind From Nowhere.
A Daughter of the Congo is a 1930 American race film directed, written and produced by Oscar Micheaux. The film is loosely based on the novel The American Cavalryman (1917), by African-American novelist and playwright Henry Francis Downing. It is considered a lost film.
Nurse Edith Cavell is a 1939 American film directed by British director Herbert Wilcox about Edith Cavell. The film was nominated at the 1939 Oscars for Best Original Score.
Lucien Andriot ASC was a French and American cinematographer. He shot more than 200 films and television programs over the course of his career.
Ethel Moses was an American stage and film actress, and dancer. She was billed as "the black Jean Harlow". Moses is best known for working in films by Oscar Micheaux.
Lester Lang was an American cinematographer known for lensing several of Oscar Micheaux's films in the 1930s.
The Spider's Web is a 1926 American film directed by Oscar Micheaux which stars Evelyn Preer. It was remade in 1932 as The Girl from Chicago.
Carl Mahon was an actor in the United States. An African American, he had several film roles including a starring role in the 1932 film The Girl from Chicago
Iris Hall was a Barbadian-American actor. She appeared in leading roles in two race films by the pioneering African-American director Oscar Micheaux: The Homesteader (1919) and The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920).
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