Programs

MOVIES, RACE, AND WORLD WAR II

Post-World War II American movies conveyed the urgency to make America better than its fascist enemies, and suggested a promise of future "brotherhood, tolerance, and equality." This video-illustrated lecture by Thomas Cripps demonstrates how Hollywood films such as Sundown, Sahara, and Lifeboat and government propaganda movies like The Negro Soldier anticipated the politics of racial activism and offered a documentary record of that aspect of American history. Requires video player and television monitor. Appropriate for adult audiences.

Thomas Cripps is University Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, at Morgan State University where he also served as Coordinator of the University Television Project, which has produced more than forty programs on African-American life and culture for syndication on commercial television. He has published a number of books on black film, including Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900-1942 and Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era. Dr. Cripps received his B.S. in Education from Towson University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History and Literature from the University of Maryland College Park.