James D. Ruffin

The earliest surviving feature by Oscar Micheaux, the most important Black filmmaker of the silent era, was made in direct answer to *The Birth of a Nation*. Schoolteacher Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer) travels north to raise funds for an impoverished Southern school, and the film unfolds her past in flashbacks — culminating in an unflinching lynching sequence that depicts the racial violence Griffith's film celebrated. Made for Black audiences and frequently cut by censors who feared it would provoke unrest, it survives only in a single print rediscovered in Spain in the 1970s. It was inducted into the National Film Registry. Published in 1920, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent