CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/18/2022

Scholarship and spark in 'Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971'

"It is of the utmost importance that a black child see on that screen someone who looks like him," James Baldwin wrote in 1968. "Our children have been suffering from the lack of identifiable images for as long as our children have been born." For film lovers and students of Black history alike, Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 is an absolute must. Releasing this week from DelMonico Books and Academy Museum of Motion Pictures—where the corresponding exhibition is on view through February 4, 2023—this scholarly, 288-page visual goldmine presents the remarkable, overlooked history of Black representation in American cinema, from the silent film era through the Black Power movement. Featured image is a production still of Fayard and Harold Nicholas in the 1943 all-Black musical comedy, Stormy Weather.