(CBS DETROIT) – The Detroit Institute of Arts is celebrating the rich legacy of Black filmmakers and actors in a new exhibition honoring the pioneers who shaped the narrative of Black cinema, spanning from 1898 to 1971.
“It’s about the struggle of African Americans to achieve a kind of agency in which they could tell their own stories with casts that were not white people in blackface,” said Elliot Wilhelm, the curator of film at the DIA.
Wilhelm says the exhibit is inspired by and named after an independent 1923 all-Black-cast movie, “Regeneration.” The pictures, costumes, props and posters highlight lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers receiving critical acclaim despite the challenges of systemic racism.
“To learn the history of how this happened is a story of not just film,” Wilhelm said. “[It’s also] the story of trying to reach equality in so many ways of life.”
Valerie Mercer, curator and head of the African American Art Department at the DIA, says the exhibition’s importance is rooted in highlighting the obstacles Black actors navigated historically, some of which they’re still challenged with today.
Actress Taraji P. Henson recently sounded the alarm on the persistent gender and racial pay gap in the entertainment industry on CBS Sunday Morning.
“I still don’t feel like I’m getting paid what I’m deserved,” Henson said. “I haven’t gotten a raise since [2018], and each and every project that I have, I have to fight for that.”
As you journey through this exhibit, you see the struggle rarely stops the artist, just as oppression hasn’t stopped Black people from doing, creating and making history.
“Early on, people like Dubois and Booker T. Washington, [they] grasped onto photography because it overturned the proliferation of racist stereotypes,” Mercer said. “Film is an extension of that to show how we live, how we love, and how we exist in the world.”