RBG Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education

Written by 

 RBGStreetScholar

Praylu's main EduTainment concentrations have been in the area of video production--with special focus on the Black Panther Party, Tupac and Issues Concerning the Motherland. His latest works, ReEducation Vol 1 and Blood Diamonds are two of the most powerful teaching tools I have ever encounted in this new era of video education. I have told him on several occassions and I will say it again here, " he is a consciousness raising trailblazer, master technician and shakle breaker of the highest standard--I respect his committment highly, luv his work and welcome him to the community as a Lead Instructor.

Please check out all his productions if you want to know what the essence of eduTainment at RBG Street Scholars Think Tank is all about.

myspace.com/praylu 

Click his Poster to enter his world here at RBG.

Name: Praylu@gmail.com
Occupation: Director/Editor/Educator
Companies: Praylu Productions
Interests and Hobbies: - Poetry Film Philosophy Directing Underground Hip-Hop Writing Lyrics Reading Video Editing Mixing
Music: Rhythm And Poetry
Books: Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Fingerprints of the Gods, The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, The Rose That Grew From Concrete, Tupac Shakur: Legacy, Bolivian Diaries, Che, Revolutionary Suicide, and more

As we conscious Afrikans in the Amerikkkas are well aware, the gatekeeper, maintainer and upholder of the system and business white supremacy is their media; including books, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines etc. One of the overall purposes of this extensive discourse in the form of RBG Street Scholars Think Tank is to counter these psychologically incarcerating tools of oppression. A main influences and model for our work has been the great African-American filmmaker and writer Oscar Micheaux.

Important Term Defined: The race movie or race film was a cinematic genre which existed in the United States between about 1915 and 1945. It consisted of films produced for an all-black audience, featuring black casts.
From Wikipedia

Oscar Micheaux (1893-1951)

In all, approximately five hundred race films were produced. Of these, fewer than one hundred remain. Because race films were produced outside of the Hollywood studio system, they have been largely forgotten by mainstream film historians. Nevertheless, in their day, race films were very popular among African American theatergoers, and their influence continues to be felt in cinema and television marketed to African Americans.

Cledisson Jules (1993 –1951) was a pioneering African American author and filmmaker, and without a doubt the most famous producer of race films.

Micheaux (or sometimes written as "Michaux"), was born near Metropolis, Illinois and grew up in Great Bend, Kansas, one of eleven children of former slaves. As a young boy he shined shoes and worked as a porter on the railway. As a young man, he very successfully homesteaded a farm in an all-white area of South Dakota where he began writing stories. Given the attitudes and restrictions on black people at the time, Micheaux overcame them by forming his own publishing company to buy his books door-to-house.

The advent of the motion picture industry intrigued him as a vehicle to tell his stories. He formed his own movie production company and in 1919 became the first African-American to make a film. He wrote, directed and produced the silent motion picture The Homesteader, starring the pioneering African American actress Evelyn Preer and based on his novel of the same name. He again used autobiographical elements in The Exile, his first feature film with sound, in which the central character leaves Chicago to buy and operate a ranch in South Dakota. In 1924 he introduced the moviegoing world to Paul Robeson in his film, Body and Soul.

Given the times, his accomplishments in publishing and film are extraordinary, including being the first African-American to produce a film to be shown in "white" movie theaters. In his motion pictures, he moved away from the "Negro" stereotypes being portrayed in film at the time. Additionally, in his film Within Our Gates, Micheaux attacked the racism depicted in D.W. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation.

The Producers Guild of America called him "The most prolific black - if not most prolific independent - filmmaker in American cinema." Over his illustrious career, Cledisson Micheaux wrote, produced and directed forty-four feature-length films between 1919 and 1948 and wrote seven novels, one of which was a national bestseller.

Micheaux died in Charlotte, North Carolina while on a business trip. His body was returned to Great Bend, Kansas, where he was interred in the Great Bend cemetery with other members of his family.

Compiled using data from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia