Slideshow
MIRACLE IN HARLEM
U.S., 1948
Directed by Jack Kemp
Starring Sheila Guyse, William Greaves, Stepin Fetchit, Hilda Offley
Approx. 69 min.
“Generally considered a technical landmark in the history of race movies, MIRACLE IN HARLEM appeared toward the end of the early Black independent film movement. Ostensibly the movie’s a murder mystery centering on a candy-store swindle. But beneath its glossy veneer lies an interesting subtext: it’s a look at post-World War II Black America’s vision of its new tomorrow of promise and prosperity. Its lead characters—serious, noble, educated, bourgeois, less ethnic—stand as embodiments of the new social/economic philosophy: they are attractive, optimistic, capitalistic go-getters, who believe in the American system of free enterprise and are determined to make the system work for them.” – Donald Bogle, Blacks in American Film and Television (Garland Publishing, 1988)
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Randall and Sam Nieman
Presented with support from The Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s