Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Returning the Gaze 1

1. The Souls of Black Folk in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Black Newspaper Criticism and the Early Cinema, 1909–1916
12

2. The Birth of a Nation and Interventionist Criticism: Resisting Race as Spectacle 59

3. Cinephilia in the Black Renaissance: New Negro Film Criticism, 1916–1930 107

4. Black Modernist Dialectics and the New Deal: Accomodationist and Radical Film Criticism, 1930–1940 179

5. The Recalcitrant Gaze; Critiquing Hollywood in the 1940s 272

Epilogue 314

Notes 317

Works Cited 333

Index 349

“[A]n interesting contribution to the ever-evolving literature on the subject of African Americans and their historic relationship as subjects, objects, makers, and viewers to the medium of movies.” — Thomas Cripps, The Journal of American History

“[T]he critical importance of the archival work that Everett has done to establish what is at once a polyphonic and a coherent black film literature tradition is incontrovertible.” — Laura Quinn, Film Criticism

“Since too much of the early criticism in the black press is ‘unknown, under appreciated, and worst, yet, inaccessible,’ the importance of this book is clear.” — P. H. Stacy, Choice

"[A] timely and important new book. . . . Returning the Gaze makes a major contribution to our understanding of American film history. Most importantly, it adds to our knowledge of the role that critics for the black press played in fostering public debate about the cinema and its complicated, multivalent effects on race relations. To put it another way, one of the real pleasures of this book lies in its recovery of critical role models from the archives of the black press." — Marianne Conroy, Film Quarterly

"[F]ascinating. . . . Returning the Gaze performs an invaluable service, brining to our attention an entire canon of writing that was previously all but lost to history. Just as importantly, perhaps, more so, the book demonstrates that at a time when African-Americans were looked at through a prejudiced lens, some were looking back-in anger." — Clifford Thompson, Cineaste

"Returning the Gaze makes an important contribution to film scholarship by bringing this previously overlooked archive to critical attention and by arguing persuasively for its importance to the study of film. . . . It is an indispensable reference book for film theorists as well as a lively history of writing about film. It is a major contribution to film studies that opens the door to further innovative investigations of early Black film criticism." — Kara Keeling, Callaloo

“[A]n interesting contribution to the ever-evolving literature on the subject of African Americans and their historic relationship as subjects, objects, makers, and viewers to the medium of movies.” —Thomas Cripps, The Journal of American History

“[T]he critical importance of the archival work that Everett has done to establish what is at once a polyphonic and a coherent black film literature tradition is incontrovertible.” —Laura Quinn, Film Criticism

“Since too much of the early criticism in the black press is ‘unknown, under appreciated, and worst, yet, inaccessible,’ the importance of this book is clear.” —P. H. Stacy, Choice

"[A] timely and important new book. . . . Returning the Gaze makes a major contribution to our understanding of American film history. Most importantly, it adds to our knowledge of the role that critics for the black press played in fostering public debate about the cinema and its complicated, multivalent effects on race relations. To put it another way, one of the real pleasures of this book lies in its recovery of critical role models from the archives of the black press." —Marianne Conroy, Film Quarterly

"[F]ascinating. . . . Returning the Gaze performs an invaluable service, brining to our attention an entire canon of writing that was previously all but lost to history. Just as importantly, perhaps, more so, the book demonstrates that at a time when African-Americans were looked at through a prejudiced lens, some were looking back-in anger." —Clifford Thompson, Cineaste

"Returning the Gaze makes an important contribution to film scholarship by bringing this previously overlooked archive to critical attention and by arguing persuasively for its importance to the study of film. . . . It is an indispensable reference book for film theorists as well as a lively history of writing about film. It is a major contribution to film studies that opens the door to further innovative investigations of early Black film criticism." —Kara Keeling, Callaloo

“Anna Everett moves African American film criticism and commentary from the margins to the center in this innovative, imaginative, and original book. Superbly researched and engagingly written, Returning the Gaze shows us the necessity of placing race at the center of the history of the American cinema, while at the same time making it clear that any adequate understanding of African American identity needs to acknowledge the centrality of cinema to the practices and processes of U.S. racial formation.” — George Lipsitz, author of, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness and Time Passages

“Everett’s fine book makes an important contribution to our understanding of black cinema, from production to journalism and criticism, as a resistance practice representing every orientation of black culture, from the popular to the political and aesthetic. This one is ‘must’ reading for all interested in black cinema, its issues, and its critical discourse.” — Ed Guerrero, New York University

Compelling and of great critical importance, Returning the Gaze makes a major contribution to film studies.” — Dana Polan, University of Southern California

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