Mediums, the media and African Americans praise Spike Lee as one of many filmmakers or film producers that show homage and respect either directly or indirectly for filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. The first African American filmmaker, Oscar (Devereaux) Micheaux produced over thirty-four recorded films for Hollywood and more. This included silent and speaking films from the 1800’s until his death in 1951.

These are two black directors and writers who have deliberately stayed away from promoting negative stereotypes in movie productions. Micheaux’s productions as the movie Black Face written by Spike Lee and or even his directorial Get On The Bus show stereotypes that are invested as signifiers of the complexity of the black and human race as to opposed to buffoonery established for blacks to portray as a way of survival during and before the abolitionist movement that often still perpetrates in media productions today. Oscar Micheaux was born on a farm January 2, 1884 to a father who was an enslaved African American named Calvin and his mother Belle Michaux who had a total of thirteen children.

It was Oscar who added an “e” to his name, though it is not readily known why. His parents relocated from their home to help give Oscar and his siblings a better education. He went to a well-established school until money ran out and had to return back to the farm. It was when he went to Chicago, Illinois to live with a brother and saw him being subservient as a waiter that his disdain for his brother’s lifestyle prompted him to rent his own place and find work in the stockyards, stockpiles and various other jobs that he either found challenging or disappointing.

Marketing was an area in his childhood Michaux found for making success. He loved meeting people and was sufficient at communication. He worked as a Pullman and a Homesteader and it was as a Homesteader that he became inspired to write his first novels and films. It is recorded that Mr. Micheaux found the job as a Homesteader one of the most beneficial positions where he learned about human relations. Consequently, he wrote articles that he later submitted to press while living in Dallas, South Dakota because of his work experience.
 

For the complete article written by the author and pictures of Oscar Michaux log on link below-

http://www.socyberty.com/ethnicity/first-african-american-filmmaker/