#OscarsSoWhite
A01=Alyssa Lopez
actors
Author_Alyssa Lopez
Black
Black film
Black film culture
Black film history
Category=ATF
Category=JBSL
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WQH
censorship
censorship boards
cinema
cultural history
desegregation
directors
Diversity
entertainment
entrepreneurship
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
film criticism
filmmakers
Great Migration
Harlem
Harlem Renaissance
journalism
journalists
labor
labor history
Lafayette Theatre
Lester Walton
Micheaux
modernity
moviegoers
moviegoing
movies
New Negro Movement
New York
New York Age
New York City
newspapers
Oscar Micheaux
prison
projectionists
protest
public space
race films
Renaissance Theatre
sound film
strikes
trade press
Vitascope
weeklies
women
Product details
- ISBN 9781439924129
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 04 Apr 2025
- Publisher: Temple University Press,U.S.
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Reel Freedom intimately captures the relationship between Black film culture and space in New York City. Alyssa Lopez argues that Black film culture, from its origins in the early twentieth century to its firm establishment in the 1930s, was necessarily both entertainment and resistance, connected as it was to Black New Yorkers’ demands for access and equality in the city.
Lopez investigates how ordinary people, labor activists, journalists, filmmakers, theater managers, and owners all shaped Black film culture. Black girls and women used moviegoing as a means of independence and control over their lives. Race filmmaker Oscar Micheaux fought with New York State’s censorship board to get his films screened with limited edits in local theaters. And Harlem’s Black projectionists battled for unionization and fair pay, while journalists linked cinema to Black New Yorkers’ lived experiences.
In Reel Freedom, Lopez chronicles the wide-ranging and remarkable pervasiveness of Black film culture in New York City, redefining a period and place most associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In doing so, she illustrates how Black New Yorkers leveraged cinema to make the city their own and to enjoy urban living to its fullest.
In the series Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy
Lopez investigates how ordinary people, labor activists, journalists, filmmakers, theater managers, and owners all shaped Black film culture. Black girls and women used moviegoing as a means of independence and control over their lives. Race filmmaker Oscar Micheaux fought with New York State’s censorship board to get his films screened with limited edits in local theaters. And Harlem’s Black projectionists battled for unionization and fair pay, while journalists linked cinema to Black New Yorkers’ lived experiences.
In Reel Freedom, Lopez chronicles the wide-ranging and remarkable pervasiveness of Black film culture in New York City, redefining a period and place most associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In doing so, she illustrates how Black New Yorkers leveraged cinema to make the city their own and to enjoy urban living to its fullest.
In the series Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy
Alyssa Lopez is Assistant Professor of History at Providence College.
