Every Step a Struggle

This book pays tribute to the sacrifices and achievements of seven individuals who made difficult and controversial choices to ensure that black Americans shared in the evolution of the nation's cultural heritage. Transcriptions and analyses of never-before-published uncensored conversations with Lorenzo Tucker, Lillian Gish, King Vidor, Clarence Muse, Woody Strode, Charles Gordone, and Frederick Douglass O'Neal reveal many of the reasons and rationalizations behind a racist screen imagery in the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. This primary source, replete with pictures, documentation, and extensive annotations, recounts through the words of important participants what happened to many film pioneers, when a new generation of African-Americans rebelled against the nation's stereotyped film imagery.