Black Americans Founded the Blueprint For Independent Non-White Media & Film in the USA

Ethnic Black Americans founded the blueprint for independent media/film, being the first to go against the Edison Trust which was a monopoly in the film industry. William Foster, founder of the Foster Photoplay Company (1910),  the Johnson brothers who founded the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (1915) and Oliver Micheaux, known as the founder of the blueprint of independent film and founder of the Micheaux Film and Book Company (1918), were the first to go to their own audiences – Black Americans – who were excluded from big media which only catered to white Americans.

From the very beginning of the film industry, Black Americans played the foundational role in the independent film industry by founding the blueprint on taking independent films to audiences outside of the monopoly that had been gained through the Edison Trust, also known as the Motion Picture Patents Company. The Edison Trust was a monopoly of the film industry that patented all the equipment for use solely through them, and only white people had access.

Therefore, what the founders of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Noble and George Perry Johnson, William Foster and Oliver Micheaux did all at different years was they took their own knowledge and created independently for Black American audiences while creating stories that went against the stereotypes white film makers produced.

• William Foster, for instance, sent his films overseas for troops to be entertained which expanded the reach of this new type of independent film paid for, directed and produced by Black Americans.
• Noble and George Perry Johnson opened what was originally known as the Lincoln Film Studio in Los Angeles so Black Americans could watch themselves as they truly were, not a stereotype.
• Oliver Micheaux launched the Micheaux Film and Book Company and ended up creating the most films (44) and traveled around the USA to different cities selling his own screenings at theaters and to keep the financing going, he sold stock to those interested and used the money from his own pockets.

Each one of these men decided to take the industry independently with their “race” films, bypassing the space that was completely run by white Americans and turned that whole industry upside down. The Edison Trust fell to what became known today as self distribution, or independence, proving that there is always an audience beyond what the largest and the wealthiest can produce through grassroots and touring to any venue that would have them.

Although there were other white independent filmmakers to go against the Edison Trust at the same time, their fight wasn’t akin to these Black American filmmakers who had to truly dig out a spot for themselves whereas the white filmmakers already had an easier audience along with more financing. This is what makes Black American filmmakers of that day and time the true founders of the blueprint of when it comes to independent filmmaking in a whites only, monopolized industry which has only started slowly breaking away from it today.