Race Films/Race Matters: A Conversation with the Finger Lakes Film Trail
The Finger Lakes Film Trail is a consortium of three institutions: the George Eastman Museum (Rochester); the Wharton Studio Museum (Ithaca); and the Cayuga Museum of History and Art/Case Research Laboratory (Auburn). In 2020, the Finger Lakes Film Trail hosted the program series "Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race in America," with support from an HNY Action Grant. Using race film (a twentieth-century genre of films with black casts produced for black audiences), silent film, and the visual arts as catalysts for community-oriented discussions, the program has also received an HNY Vision Grant (2018) and an HNY Action Grant (2019).
HNY’s Learning & Development Coordinator, Kordell Hammond, met over Zoom with Barbara Tepa Lupack, Program Coordinator, and Ken Fox, Director of Library and Archives at the George Eastman Museum, last fall to discuss the Finger Lakes Film Trail and the success of the program series. As the HNY Blog is intended to accommodate diverse communities and historically underserved audiences, as well as highlight effective humanities-focused efforts which cultivate creative value across our state, we hope HNY followers will be excited to learn about the Finger Lakes Film Trail and the “Race Films/Race Matters” program series.
Note: This conversation was condensed and edited for clarity. The interview was conducted under local and government guidance as well as additional health and safety measures. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities New York.
Kordell Hammond (KH): Can you speak to how “Race Films/Race Matters” becomes a mirror in which humanity can honestly face ourselves?
What are “race films” anyway, and why do they matter?
Barbara Tepa Lupack (BTL): Produced from the 1910s until the early 1940s, race films distinguished themselves by being products made by the black community, and for the black community.
In other words, race films are films that were produced by independent producers (both black and white), created primarily for black audiences, and shown almost exclusively in black, or “race,” theaters.
The silent race film era spanned the years from around 1915 until 1929, when sound technology forced most of the remaining race filmmakers out of business and when Hollywood began making what were then called “Negro-themed” pictures.
And although few race films survive today, they serve as an invaluable reminder that some of the issues that existed a century ago still exist today. William Faulkner famously said that "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Race films prove just that: they give us a sense of our racial and historical past.
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Kordell Hammond (KH): Thank you again for joining us, HNY, to tell us about your programming, and then also the underbelly of what went into creating such a robust conversational and discussion-based program series. Congratulations, again ...
Barbara Tepa Lupack (BTL): I’m delighted to have an opportunity to speak about it. To me, race films are simply magical. They provide a portal to a time past and a mirror to current concerns and enduring problems. Historically speaking, one of the things that's so extraordinary about race films, especially those dating back to the 1910s and 1920s, is that [race films] offer a visual record of black achievement. And as we all know, black Americans had a long, rich, and proud history. But unlike whites, [black Americans] lacked a strong visual past. And that, in turn, allowed others—and here I mean white others—to define them. And that definition, often inaccurate or incomplete, helped to give rise to the numerous persistent and often ugly stereotypes that dominated social thinking and practice in the last years of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th.
BTL: And we have to remember that a century ago, many white Americans, especially those in small towns and cities, had never actually encountered a black American. So their impression of blacks was often shaped by received imagery. That is, by the distorted and so-called comic imagery and crude exaggerated figures they saw in white newspapers, in cartoons and minstrel shows, and in early racist white pictures.
And of course, there was the pervasive racist advertising. Aunt Jemima, for example, the happy pancake-making Mammy who first appeared in 1888; Old Uncle Obadiah, who promised if you used his company's polish your stove would look as black and as shiny as his own skin; and Rastus, who began selling cream of wheat and appearing on cereal boxes as far back as 1893. And, of course, the ubiquitous Uncle Tom, whose image was used to peddle everything from wallpaper to household cleaners. Race films were therefore an important attempt to counter such negative or inaccurate imagery by presenting positive imagery.
Instead of bumbling servants, like Stepin Fetchit, and ludicrously devoted domestics, like the proverbial Mammies, race films portrayed blacks as [black Americans] were in reality: hardworking, well-educated, race-proud, aspiring, enterprising. Unlike the slow-witted servants or low-comic foils of mainstream films, [black Americans] were teachers, doctors, detectives, oilmen, land-owning ranchers, composers, and successful Broadway producers.
In other words, race films depicted blacks as real people, not caricatures.
BTL: And one last point, race films further distinguished themselves by being products largely by the black community for the black community, and that in itself makes them a singular and remarkable achievement. And [black Americans] took enormous pride in the films and in seeing realistic and sympathetic depictions of their own experience on screen, something that they most assuredly did not get in mainstream cinema.
BTL: They offered a visual counter-narrative of black achievement and depicted blacks, not as caricatures but as they are in everyday life: real people with real and compelling stories. And yet, the portrayal of racial and social relations in race films is not simply a portrait of a bygone age. As much as we would like to believe that 100 years later social and racial politics have significantly improved and prejudices have diminished or been eliminated, in all too many ways they have not.
Unlike mainstream films at the time, race films starred black actors and emphasized black-oriented issues and themes. That in itself makes them a singular and remarkable achievement. Black moviegoers could take enormous pride in race films and in seeing realistic and sympathetic depictions of their own experience on screen.
Those films were therefore important in countering the prevailing negative or inaccurate imagery. The study of race films allows us to examine both the ways that representation has changed and the ways it has remained static or even regressed. That is why a program series such as “Race Films/Race Matters” is so crucial to an appreciation and an understanding not simply of late nineteenth or early twentieth-century history, but also of our contemporary history.
BTL: For me personally, race films raise important issues that need to be discussed. I was raised in the [United States] South in the late 50s and the early 60s. I am the child of immigrants and my parents came to America after the Second World War. And interestingly enough, one of the ways they learned English, as so many immigrants did, was by going to the movies. Attending the cinema was a legitimate way of learning about the larger world around them. And the movies soon became a critical part of their life, and they were also a very fundamental part of mine.
Race films served a similar purpose [for black audiences]. They provided an important counterpoint to the depictions of stereotyped black characters in mainstream cinema and helped to provide a fuller depiction of the black experience.
By initiating important community conversations such as those that our program series sparks, I think that we can promote a richer understanding of racial issues and cinema, and social history, and, at the same time, provide a model for similar conversations on other vital topics. Perhaps more than any other medium, race films remind us, indeed, that race matters.
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Kordell Hammond (KH): Can you talk about your coming of age story just briefly, if you may, and what brought you to race films?
Barbara Tepa Lupack (BTL): Sure. One thing is I’m the child of immigrants and my parents came to this country after the Second World War. And interestingly enough, one of the ways that they learned English, as so many immigrants did, is by going to the movies. So the movies were a very important part of their life, and they were also a very important part of mine. It was something that I enjoyed from my earliest childhood experiences on. And it was a way of learning about areas of society and the world that I had a little knowledge of at that particular time.
I would just say that I think about what William Faulkner said–famously said about the past: that it is never dead/ it’s not even past. And I think that's especially true of race films, the earliest of which, as I said, a moment ago, were created more than a century ago. And yet their portrayal of racial and social relations is not simply a portrait of a bygone age. As much as we would like to believe that 100 years later social and racial politics have improved and prejudices have diminished or [have been] eliminated, in all too many ways they have not. And the examination of both the changes and the stasis or, worse yet, the regression is precisely what makes the study of race films in the program “Race Films/Race Matters” still fundamental and so crucial to an appreciation of our contemporary history.
BTL: Given current racial and social tensions, from the shockingly overt demonstrations of racism and xenophobia to a desire by some to turn back the clock and ignore the strides that were made on civil and voting rights over the past few decades and especially over the past few years, when retrogressive behavior didn't make America great again, as we were told it would, but rather made America hate again, I think it's doubly important for all of us to address those issues that the films first raised. Quite simply, to know where we are we have to understand where we've been. And this is particularly true since memory tends to be so short and unreliable and selective, especially to those who prefer to rewrite history and expunge its more controversial aspects. After all, as we've witnessed, when fake news is repeated often enough, it becomes—for some—fact.
Furthermore, we have to recognize the often shocking parallels between the 1910s and 20s in our own age. Consider these parallels, for example, the rebirth in 1915 of the Ku Klux Klan, which had originally been formed in 1865 as a means of Southern resistance against Reconstruction-era policies. The clan had largely died out by the early 20th century, but it was resurrected with the release of D.W. Griffith's viciously racist masterpiece of American filmmaking, The Birth of a Nation (1915), which portrayed blacks as brutes and malicious traitors and tenants undermining the white race, especially by defiling the purity of Southern womanhood.
BTL: And now consider the resurgence of hate groups in the 2010s and of white supremacists in the 2020s, which have retrieved many of those earlier racist symbols, motifs, and beliefs and which have resorted to many of the same underground tactics of terror, intimidation. As proof, we need to look no further than the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol and the disgraceful displays of the Confederate flag, that violent symbol of white power and oppression that never before penetrated the halls of Congress even during the Civil War, and the vile slogans of the supremacists who were behind some of those assaults.
Or the parallels between the prevalence of lynching as a practice and as a form of so-called white justice in the early decades of the 1900s, when [black Americans] were tortured and hanged and often burned, their clothing and even their skin collected and saved as souvenirs, and photographs of those grizzly murders sold as picture postcards.
BTL: Then consider the rise in racial violence, hate speech and hate crimes, and atrocities perpetrated by today's so-called Patriots and racial purists. Or the parallels between the exclusion of black women in the early twentieth-century suffrage movement and the prohibitions on black votes and black participation in other aspects of American life, such as service in the armed forces, as we just said, where black soldiers were not allowed to serve alongside white soldiers for fear of placing deadly weapons in black hands.
And then think of the current and proposed voter suppression policies and restrictions on access to long-standing social programs. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, over just a two-week period recently over 163 pieces of legislation were proposed, introduced, or generated specifically to prevent a repeat of the strong turnout at the polls of voters of color in November 2020. “Be proud of our people,” [Oscar] Micheaux had urged black viewers at the end of his landmark 1920 film Within Our Gates (1920), which is one of the films in the program series.
BTL: By initiating important community conversations such as those that our program series sparks, I think that we can do that, promote a richer understanding of racial issues and cinema and social history, and at the same time provide a model for similar conversations on other vital topics. Perhaps more than any other medium, race films remind us, indeed, that race matters.
BTL: And for me personally, it's a very important issue because I was raised in the South in the late 50s and the early 60s, and as much as we would want to believe that the situations had changed, there was still tremendous discrimination and there continues to be tremendous discrimination. So I think we have to face it. And then we have to apply ourselves to ensuring that we eliminate or, at least, diminish it at best.
KH: Barbara, thanks for orienting us a bit. What about you, Ken? What brought you to study race films, and how do we as an American public talk productively about them?
Perhaps you can also speak to some of the difficulties faced when engaging the public in group dialogue around a challenging subject matter like race relations.
Ken Fox (KF): It's hard to talk about them as a homogeneous group, for starters, where we could say one thing that applies to them all.
Each film—at its core and within its presentation—is very different from the next. And so, I think it’s an important difference to get across when approaching this level of discussion-based programming: race film is a heterogeneous mix.
The term “race” today, secondly, is really a loaded word; a term that I think a lot of people today are understandably uncomfortable with. Back in the 1920s, it didn't necessarily carry the segregationist connotations that it carries today, for example, when we're talking about [race as] “social construct” and things like that.
People who were seen as black community leaders were also often referred to as “race men” or “race women.” It was not quite an honorific, but it was something rather positive.
BTL: To build on what Ken is saying, race films are not a genre with which even most dedicated or devoted film buffs are familiar. Our plan to bring race films to the public was in fact a challenging undertaking.
The themes underlying the films in the series are some of the more significant American cultural issues and concerns imaginable. Many of the issues addressed in the series "Race Films/Race Matters" have struck a familiar chord with contemporary filmmakers, such as award-winning director Spike Lee. In fact, Lee has cited Oscar Micheaux as one of the greatest influences on his own landmark films.
BTL: Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1920), one of the films in our program series, raises essential questions about racial inequity, especially the attitudinal differences between the North and the South; about the lack of support for black education, which is crucial to black uplift; about race ambition; about miscegenation; and, of course, about the horror and violence of lynching as a tool of white vigilante justice.
We see a more modern reinterpretation of those cultural issues in many of Spike Lee’s films. After all, Lee’s films are social issue films, just as race films were social issue films.
The purpose of the “Race Films/Race Matters” program, and in particular the introductory lectures that the Finger Lakes Film Trail has provided, is to acquaint viewers with the concept, the scope, and the significance of race filmmaking. Once they gain that familiarity, our hope is to encourage them to start talking and, most importantly, to keep listening and learning.
KF: We certainly understood that these films required that kind of curatorial work and contextualization to really understand them, and really appreciate them – the films, that is. And I found that that's what was so interesting about preparing the program series. The more you learned about the milieu in which these race films were made, the richer and more complex the final product, in our case the program series and accompanying conversations, became.
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Ken Fox: That's a great question. And it kind of leads me to a story that I have, and I don't think I've ever told it. So this is sort of an exclusive, although it's exclusive to my life, which I don't know how interesting that is to people. [...] I was born in New York City in 1963. I'm a white, cis-gendered male-and, gay. My father was Jewish. My mother was Catholic, and I grew up pretty much without religion. It kind of canceled each other out. And that's sort of an aside, but I always feel like that was sort of important to my makeup.
But my parents were Republicans. They say this whole thing about being fiscally conservative. I just feel like if you're conservative, you're conservative, it's all wrapped together. You can't parse these things out. But they were socially progressive, I would say. But I grew up in an all-white neighborhood in the 1960s -- and I don't know if I said I was born the day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. So I always felt like I was born into this post-Camelot world that would then be colored by Vietnam and Watergate. And, you know, I came of age in the 1970s.
I went to a public high school, but I went to a very progressive, very liberal,however very white College. Liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. It was Quaker, a Quaker College. So all of those, they all said the right things, but we were still probably 99.9% white. This was back in the early 80s. I hear it's much better now, in terms of diversity. But I grew up in a fairly white, I would say almost strictly white world. At College, I sort of had what I think a lot of people have, which is this kind of awakening of social issues and injustice.
KF: When I was in college, it was South Africa, and the ongoing apartheid system was sort of like ‘the’ issue. So that was what people were protesting on campus. The school's continued investment in whatever--gold, I believe, gold and diamond mines? So students were demanding divesting from this apartheid state. [...] We weren't talking about the subtleties of racism. We weren't talking about structural racism or institutional racism. The issue was this very blatant appalling segregated society that it was very easy to make these moral declarations regarding. [...] We weren't really looking too closely at what we were complicit in.
But this was an awakening that I think I continued, you know, I continued following and trying to be a better human being, trying to be a less horrible white person. I would follow writers and I would try to read and try to educate myself. But still, the world I was living in was mostly white. And it continues to be, to be honest. I work in a museum where it's a struggle. I'm the co-chair of our Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility Committee and trying to diversify our staff. It's a struggle because we're predominantly a white institution.
KF: So anyway. But how I got interested in race films and the story I'd like to tell is that -- I've always been interested in film, I've always been interested in marginal cinemas. I always liked Hollywood films, but I always sort of was interested in what sometimes are called cult films, you know, films that were made outside of the Hollywood mainstream. But that I found fascinating.
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Ken Fox (KF): I always like Hollywood films, but I always sort of was interested in what sometimes are called cult films, you know, films that were made outside of the Hollywood mainstream. But that I found fascinating. And back in the 80s, when I graduated, there was no streaming Internet, so a lot of these films were very difficult to find. But were still talked about and traded on VHS cassettes. Like that was the way that you could see some of these obscure films that were made by small companies.
And back in the 1980s, Ed Wood Jr. (Edward Davis Wood Jr.) Who you may know, people may know from the Tim Burton movie that he made about Edward, who was, like, really sort of an untrained–he's known as having been the worst filmmaker ever. And he made these crazy, but I think kind of great, wildly entertaining films like Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and Glen or Glenda (1953), which is about cross dressing.
And I remember somebody saying to me once, well, if you think Ed Wood is bad, you should check out the films of Oscar Micheaux. They're terrible. And this person, and I can't remember who it was, then said, he was black, and they used an all-black cast as if that were some curiosity or some absurd notion that there would ever be a film made by a black person featuring a black cast. And back then, not too many people knew who Oscar Micheaux was. I certainly didn't.
KF: And when I finally tracked down an Oscar Micheaux film, it was one of his later sound films. And, you know, you could tell just by looking at it, he was struggling. He was struggling financially. He was struggling with this new technology that was expensive to use and required a new idea about blocking actors around microphones. But everybody was struggling with this in the early 1930s, nobody was doing it well. But I looked at it, and I remember thinking, like, well, that is pretty bad.
I didn't really give it a second thought until many years later, I finally saw one of his silent films, Within Our Gates (1920), which I believe is from 1920… It's a masterpiece. It really is one of the great American films. And this isn't hyperbole. It really is extraordinarily powerful, extraordinarily innovative. And what he was doing in this film was something that nobody else was doing.
KF: And I realized – and by this time I was much more educated. I kind of understood a little bit about race films and that there were people and production companies and filmmakers out there that were attempting sort of an alternative to Hollywood. And I understood, you know, all the forces that were coming into play a little bit better, but not much better, but enough to know that the world has been doing a great disservice to Oscar Micheaux—he's actually one of the great American filmmakers.
So that kind of awakened me – there was a certain amount of feeling that I had been ignorant about all of it and was too dismissive of these films. So seeking these films out, understanding who made them, why they were making them and what the films were doing. You know, a lot of these films were responding to other films. The story is and to a large extent, it's true that a lot of the race films that were produced after 1915 were in response to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). I think that is true, but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that black filmmakers had been making films before 1915. So not all of it was a response to D.W. Griffith and the racism of that film. But a lot of the films were in conversation with other films and novels and things that I didn't know anything about. And I don't think many people really did.
KF: So I understood that these films required that kind of curatorial work and contextualization to really understand them and really appreciate them. And I really found that that's what was so interesting about it. And that the more you learned about the milieu in which these films were made, the richer they became and the more complex. And they just continue to reveal layers every time you see them, you notice.
And I know people say this, “well, that's a sign of great art.” And I think it's true. Every time I watch an Oscar Micheaux film, I notice the flaws, and there are flaws. I noticed them less and less. And I noticed the greatness and the richness of his text, much more.
KF: That's a very roundabout way of talking about where I came from and how I came to these films and the mistake that I had made, and understanding them. And really appreciating the work that a good programmer or curator or the team of people who have introduced these films, how important that work really is to sort of--doing a little bit of that homework. Laying a little bit of that groundwork before you press play and watch the film is really important when it comes to these films.
KH: Throughout the past two years, many people have witnessed persistent systemic inequities and heightened divisions in public discourse across the American landscape. Can you talk about your approach to preparing discussion questions and additional lecture resources that take into consideration the nuance of present day issues?
What do you hope program participants gain from the series?
KF: If I can again speak personally, the series and more specifically preparing the introductory lecture for The Scar of Shame (1927) helped me realize how much my personal perceptions of “Other” people are determined by the culture around me and are reflective of the culture in which I was raised.
My understanding of other people—people who are not considered to be “white,” was largely determined by media representations. Race films, like the films Oscar Micheaux started making in 1919, and as Barbara mentioned earlier, were often a counter-narrative to media and print publications that were made primarily for white audiences and carried derogatory depictions of black people.
And they weren't looking to convince white people, either. They were more likely looking to talk amongst themselves and say, ‘This is who I am/Who are you,’ to counter the negative and exploitative propaganda being heavily distributed by mainstream media. And to see this more honest, authentic representational exchange that was happening, as a white person, I walked away from the series understanding that race films, quite frankly, are not about me. And that reality was something new— learning to accept that, as a white person, something in this world is in fact not about me. Perhaps that’s something I hope participants gain from the series, too.
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Ken Fox (KF): And as I said earlier, [race films] were [often] a reaction to derogatory depictions of black people that were rife throughout most films, films that were made for white audiences in mind, I came away from these films, being more honest, more authentic, but again, highly mediated representations of people that actually really reflected their lives made me realize how much my personal perceptions of other people are determined by the culture around me. As I said, I grew up in a really white neighborhood.
I went to a really white college, so my understanding of other people, people who are not white like me--or considered to be white like me--was sort of determined by media representations, and to see a group of filmmakers pushing back against that and saying, Well, no, this is who we are, and they weren't speaking to white people. They weren't looking to convince white people. They were looking to talk among themselves and say, this is who I am, who are you--and this kind of more honest, authentic representational thing that was happening--exchange--and to see that and to be privileged enough to witness it but see it something that was really not meant for me.
But yet due to film preservationists and archivists, some of these films survived. And I could see that I continue to see. And I would like audiences to come away from these films to constantly question our assumptions on what we think we know about one another and what we actually do know and what we have been told in very subtle, very insidious ways that support things like white supremacy when, in fact, it appears to be doing the opposite. So I think that's what I would like people to walk away with.
KF: And I know that's not a very coherent answer, but just to recognize that what we think we know is culturally determined and has been going on our entire lives and is very difficult to break away from. But we must. And I think seeing these pictures, seeing these more authentic representations is one way that helped me to understand that better. Does that make any sense?
BTL: As you have pointed out earlier, Kordell, film is a very graphic medium, and that's what makes it so effective. It creates powerful images. We can see and in turn, feel the images that Micheaux put on the screen. We can see and in turn, feel the images that [Richard] Norman put on the screen. And that's what I think is valuable about the discussion questions and introductory lectures that accompany the films in the program series.
The questions and additional resources go beyond the visual imagery on the screen and thereby encourage people of all ages and all persuasions to think critically about what they have witnessed and to create their own “movies.”
I am hoping that viewers come away with a personal perspective on the issues of race and gender—that they individualize them, personalize them, and apply them to their own lives. I believe that each of the films in the series affords that opportunity, albeit in a slightly different way. So, my hope is that viewers and participants will walk away from the program series with a fresh understanding, an increased empathy, and a genuine appreciation of the fact that all of us must strive to improve racial relations.
KH: Based on your organization’s application experience and being awarded multiple HNY grants for this program series, can you briefly talk about collaborating across three different institutions?
Perhaps you can also offer take-aways or lessons learned for future grant applicants.
BTL: We are very fortunate because this was the third grant our consortium received from Humanities New York, whose support has allowed us to continue building on what we have already started. The Vision Grant allowed us to strategize what officially became the Finger Lakes Film Trail; and the second grant, the Action Grant, permitted us an opportunity to hold on-site programming; and the 2020 Action Grant supported “Race Films/Race Matters” on the digital platform.
BTL: There have been some truly delightful outcomes. After one of the lectures and films in our series had been viewed by a class of junior high school students, I received a lovely note from one of the young people. He told me how the series gave him reason to have a conversation about race relations with his grandparents, who had lived in the US South in the 1940s. He said that he had gained more from the first-person living history that conversation had then stimulated than he had in all of his history classes. As far as I am concerned, there could be no higher accolade for any program.
Lessons Learned:
So my first suggestion would be to design programming to be as accessible and inclusive as possible. Be specific in the content and subject areas, of course, but at the same time keep in mind the methods and methodologies that will be needed to attract a multitude of viewers and listeners. There is immense value found in brainstorming and mulling over a lot of different ideas, so considering a variety of different possibilities is a great start. That is one of the joys of the “Race Films/Race Matters” program series: that there is something of value and of interest to people of all ages, from students to senior citizens. Almost everyone who participates in the program can discover something in the experience, and everyone can learn something from the experience.
I would also suggest framing the project within the limits of the initial budget and the restrictions of time but with an awareness that the project will, to some extent, evolve on its own. The best analogy I would offer here is hardly an original one, but the grant process is a lot like building a house. Inevitably, the final product requires more money and more energy than is originally imagined. But in the end, the extra strategic effort is surely worth it, and the success brings a real sense of pride and accomplishment, especially when the project team can witness the community using the material that has been made available to them.
My final suggestion would be to enjoy the direction that the project takes. Originally, in our case, “Race Films/Race Matters” was going to be a program series that offered in-person, on-site lectures, movie screenings, and discussions at three different locations: Rochester, Ithaca, and Auburn. Because of the pandemic, of course, we had no choice but to transition to a digital platform. In the end, it was a happy accident, because the program became available to a much broader audience.
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Barbara Tepa Lupack (BTL): As far as planning the program, I would offer probably just a couple of caveats to people who are looking to do programs like this in the future. We were very fortunate because this, as you mentioned, was the third grant that we have received from Humanities New York. The first was a Vision Grant to allow us to put together what became the Finger Lakes Film Trail. And the second grant, the Action Grant, allowed us to do on-site programming, and this third grant went to “Race Films, Race Matters” on the digital platform.
BTL: I think that there are a couple of things that I learned that I would like to pass on to other grantees and applicants, and the first is the value of brainstorming and mulling over a lot of different ideas. I think that the excitement of the program is thinking about all the different possibilities. And then the corollary to that, of course, is narrowing down the focus and deciding which particular aspects grantees might want to pursue.
I would also suggest framing the project within the limits of the budget and the restrictions of time. The best analogy I would offer here is hardly an original one, but the grant process is a lot like building a house. Inevitably, the final product requires more money and more energy than is originally anticipated. But in the end, the extra effort is surely worth it, and the success brings a real sense of pride and accomplishment, especially when you see people using the material that you are making available to them.
I would also suggest that, in implementing and pursuing any kind of a project for Humanities New York or any other similar grant project, the grantees make it as broadly accessible as possible. That to me was one of the joys of the “Race Films/Race Matters” series: that it is accessible, insofar as possible, to all ages and to all stages, from younger students to senior citizens. Everyone finds something a little different in the experience and everyone takes something a little different away from the experience.
I have a wonderful memory of one of the lectures and films in our series, which had been viewed by junior high school students. Afterward, I received a lovely note from one of the young people. He told me how the film prompted him to have a conversation about race relations with his grandparents, who had lived in the South in the 1940s. He said that he had gained more from the, if you will, living history that the conversation had stimulated than in all of his history classes. Now, how incredible is that? There could be no higher accolade for any program.
BTL: So my final suggestion would be for applicants and grantees to enjoy the direction that the project takes them because oftentimes it will lead to surprising avenues, all of which will be immensely satisfying and rewarding.
BTL: I am still stunned, albeit pleasantly, by the fact that there has been so much interest in “Race Films/Race Matters,” not simply nationally but also internationally. That unexpected reach was one of the great benefits of going digital. I recently had a delightful response from colleagues at universities in France, where silent film is of tremendous interest, and also in Poland, which in many ways is still an emerging democracy. I think part of the reason that the films and the lecture series appealed to audiences overseas is because so many people look to the American experience as a model for democracy in their own societies.
KH: That’s really promising to hear, Barbara. Now that we've reached the tail end of our conversation, is there anything I forgot to ask about?
BTL: “Race Films/Race Matters” was a humanities program with broad social appeal and broad community impact. And while it is technically complete – although preserved on a digital platform (the Finger Lakes Film Trail website) – in a way it is hardly finished at all. There continue to be Zoom conversations and follow-up opportunities, and people gathering in small groups to listen to the lectures and to discuss the films, especially to hear the first lecture by Dr. Samantha Sheppard, who is a brilliant race film scholar from Cornell University.
I am happy to report that the Finger Lakes Film Trail was recently awarded a new HNY grant, to continue the community conversations that “Race Films/Race Matters” began. The new program is “Making Noise About Silent Film: Conversations About Cinema, Culture, and Social Change.” Without the support and encouragement of everyone at Humanities New York, these multiple programs might not have been possible. The new grant will allow us to continue to bring the humanities into the community, into the schools, into the libraries, and into the local historical societies, so that “Making Noise About Silent Film,” like the “Race Films/Race Matters” series, can serve as an important means of awakening our shared humanity—and our shared appreciation of the humanities.
KF: And if I can add, I think, as Barbara said at the top of our conversation, cinema serves a very important function. Jacqueline Stewart has written a really great book that I highly recommend called Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity (2005). And she's talking about the creation of a public space for black people in the 1920s, really, and black theaters, more specifically. And through reading that book, I gained a sense of how cinema operates within the broader American culture, and how cinema can help to create an urban space for people who are otherwise “Othered.” As Stewart is careful to say: Cinema is not a separate space, but a space unto itself. And I think that's really important. And I hope it hasn't disappeared.
The pandemic was sort of a tipping point for us as an American culture and our habits. Many people are getting very comfortable sitting at home and, it's like, ‘Oh, good. I can watch Dune on HBO Max or whatever, ‘I don't have to go to the theater.’ However, it’s just not the same return; I would much rather have a face-to-face conversation with people about what we just went through together. What you get in the lobby of a theater on your way out when you're having a conversation, you know?
All in all, people like that cinema continued the function of discovering themselves with a larger public community through the discipline of studying film, and discussing film—and I just hope it continues in the future.
Academic Dean and Former Professor of English at SUNY
Lupack previously served as Fulbright Professor of American Literature in Poland and France. From 2015-2018, she was a Public Scholar of Humanities New York. She was also the Helm Fellow at Indiana University (2013), the Lehman Fellow at the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies (2014), and the Senior Fellow at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA (2017-2018). She is the author and editor of more than twenty-five books, including Literary Adaptations in Black American Cinema: From Micheaux to Morrison (University of Rochester Press, 2002; expanded ed., 2010), Richard E. Norman and Race Filmmaking (Indiana University Press, 2013), Early Race Filmmaking in America (Routledge, 2016), Silent Serial Sensations: The Wharton Brothers and The Magic of Early Cinema (Cornell University Press, 2020), and Being There in the Age of Trump (Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books, 2020).
Director of Library and Archives at the Richard and Ronay Menschel Library in the George Eastman Museum
Fox was formerly Associate Editor of The Motion Picture Guide and a film reviewer for TV Guide. He is a graduate of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and holds a master's degree in Information Science from the State University of New York at Albany. Currently a faculty and staff member of the Selznick School, he lectures frequently on cinema and photography.
The following people have made invaluable contributions to this program and to the Finger Lakes Film Trail:
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Diana Riesman, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Wharton Studio Museum. Riesman, who oversees publicity and promotion for FLFT events, first conceived the film trail idea, originally called ‘Central New York Film Trail.’ She also serves as the FLFT ‘Site Coordinator’ for Ithaca
Eliza Benington Kozlowski, Senior Director of Marketing and Engagement at the George Eastman Museum, for Rochester; and FLFT ‘Site Coordinator’
Kirsten Wise Gosch, Executive Director of the Cayuga Museum/Case Research Laboratory, for Auburn; and FLFT ‘Site Coordinator’
Mark Hartsuyker, owner of Raccoon Recording Studio in Ithaca, NY. Hartsuyker worked pro bono with the FLFT, coordinating the production of digital media and creating original graphic designs for each lecture video
Additional Contributors to Race Films/Race Matters:
Dr. Samantha Sheppard, Cornell University
Prof. Cynthia Henderson, Ithaca College
Dr. Charlene Regester, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Michael Reiff, English Dept. Leader at Ithaca High School
Audio Article designed by Addie Walker, HNY Marketing and Communications Manager
Interview conducted by Kordell Hammond, HNY Learning and Development Coordinator