Within Our Gates: History and Collection Facts

Collection details

• Original format: Film, video
• Medium: Film, Video
• Genre: Social problem films; Fiction films; Silent films; Feature films
• Language: English
• Collection: AFI/Filmoteca Espanola Collection (Library Of Congress)
• Repository: Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division
• Call number: Mavis identifier: 46435
• Catalogue date: 1919
• Catalogue subjects: Social problem films; Fiction films; Silent films; Feature films
• Named contributors: Micheaux, Oscar; Preer, Evelyn; Micheaux Film Corporation

Catalogue notes

• Summary: Abandoned by her fiancé, an educated negro woman with a shocking past dedicates herself to helping a near bankrupt school for impoverished negro youths. Within Our Gates was created in response to The Birth of a Nation which depicted southern whites in need of the Ku Klux Klan to protect them from blood thirsty blacks. Micheaux shows the reality of Dixie racism in 1920, where a black man could be lynched for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Sound: This moving image content is silent, and was created without sound or a soundtrack.

Sources and reuse

This guide reorganizes bibliographic facts and catalogue descriptions from the Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse data package, a published snapshot documented in 2024. The original item record identifies the source material. Audio, films, scores and full-text works are linked through the original record rather than reproduced here.