Micheaux, Oscar, 1884-1951, film director, film producer, screenwriter, actor. Preer, Evelyn, actor. Clements, Flo, actor. Lucas, Charles D., actor. Ruffin, James D., actor. Chenault, Jack, actor. Jacks, S. T. (Samuel True), 1887-1955, actor. Starks, William, 1879-1937, actor. Edwards, Mattie, 1866-1944, actor. Micheaux Film Corporation, production company. moving image Race films. lcgft Social problem films. lcgft Silent films. lcgft Feature films. lcgft Fiction films. lcgft 1993. zxx Sylvia Landry, a young black woman, is visiting her cousin, Alma Prichard, in the North. After Alma uses her wicked step-brother Larry to break Sylvia's engagement, Sylvia returns to the South. She meets Rev. Jacobs, a minister who runs a school for black children, which is facing closure. Sylvia volunteers to go to Boston to attempt to raise funds. Upon arriving, her purse is stolen, but a local man, Dr. Vivian, manages to get it back for her. Dr. Vivian falls in love with Sylvia, and gradually learns of her tragic past: her adoptive mother and father were both the victims of lynching and she was the victim of attempted rape, after a meeting between her adoptive father, sharecropper Jasper Landry, and the plantation owner, Philip Girdlestone, ends with Girdlestone dead. Meanwhile, despite setbacks, Sylvia has managed to raise $50,000 for the school from a generous philanthropist. After a second difficult encounter with Larry, Sylvia and Dr. Vivian are happily reunited. Originally released in the U.S. in 1920 by the Micheaux Book and Film Co. and Quality Amusement Corporation, both under the states rights system. At approximately 46 minutes into the film, Oscar Micheaux appears in a cameo as a criminal doing business with the gambler, Larry Prichard, who is Alma's step-brother. LC also holds the Spanish language version, entitled La Negra in the AFI/Filmoteca Española Collection and a 1/2 in. viewing copy entitled The African American cinema I : Oscar Micheaux's Within our gates in the LC Collection. Sources used: Eagan, D. America's film legacy, p. 64-68; AFI catalog online, viewed March 22, 2024; Internet movie database, March 22, 2024; San Francisco Silent Flm Festival WWW site viewed March 22, 2024 (Within our gates essay). Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, Charles D. Lucas, James D. Ruffin, Jack Chenault, S.T. Jacks, Mrs. Evelyn, William Stark, Mattie Edwards, Ralph Johnson, Grant Gorman, E.G. Tatum, Grant Edwards, Jimmie Cook, William Smith, Bernice Ladd, Oscar Micheaux. Reconstructed in 1993 from a nitrate print of La Negra, a version with Spanish language intertitles. The new English language intertitles are a translation from the Spanish back into English, with English diction, slang, and syntax drawn whenever possible from Oscar Micheaux's novels or from his 1925 film, Body and soul. This film was selected for the National Film Registry. African American educators. African American schools. African American physicians. Hoodlums--United States. Educational benefactors--United States. Race relations. Racism--United States. Lynching--United States. AFI/Filmoteca Española Collection (Library of Congress) Within our gates https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mbrsmi/ntscrm.00046435