Within Our Gates
About Within Our Gates
Sylvia Landry's cousin Alma sabotages her engagement, and Sylvia goes south to Rev. Jacobs's Piney Woods school, which is about to close. In Boston she is struck by a car while pushing a child out of the way. The owner, Elena Warwick, raises her gift from $5,000 to $50,000 after a Southern friend tells her not to help, and the school stays open. Larry then tries to blackmail Sylvia. A flashback shows a mob lynching her adoptive parents, the Landrys, and lynching the servant Efrem as well. Armand Gridlestone catches Sylvia and is about to assault her when a scar tells him she is his daughter, and he stops. Dr. Vivian hears the story from Alma and marries Sylvia.
Cast & crew
More about Within Our Gates
Oscar Micheaux wrote, produced, and directed it. The release date listed is January 12, 1920. Chicago's censor board rejected the film; a cut version opened at the States Theater on February 24, 1920. Omaha and New Orleans also blocked it or demanded cuts over the lynching and the attack on Sylvia.
Themes
Background
Micheaux's story runs through Jim Crow schooling, a Boston philanthropist, and a lynching, in the year the revived Ku Klux Klan was back in the news.
In film history
It is the oldest known surviving feature directed by an African American. The National Film Registry added it in 1992.
Preservation
Thomas Cripps found the Spanish print in 1979. The Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center restored the film from it in 1993, rebuilding intertitles. A Library of Congress record includes a digital viewing copy. The National Film Registry selected it in 1992.
Notes
- Evelyn Preer is top-billed. Floy Clements and Mattie Edwards are also credited.
- Only four original English intertitles survived on the print that came back from Spain. The rest of the titles on that copy were Spanish.
- The Filmoteca Española had bought the print, under the title La Negra, in 1956 for 4,000 pesetas.
- DJ Spooky later wrote a score used in a Kino Lorber box set.
Scenes
- Mrs. Stratton tells Elena Warwick not to fund the school, and Warwick raises the gift to $50,000.
- The flashback shows the mob lynching Jasper Landry and his wife, then lynching Efrem.
Also available
- Internet Archive (WithinOurGates)
- Wikimedia Commons (Within Our Gates (1920).webm)
- Library of Congress digital viewing copy
- Kino Lorber box set (score by DJ Spooky)
