Oscar Micheaux
1884-1951

Pioneer black novelist and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux was the only black to purchase a relinquishment claim on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in 1904. The Ohio native fictionalized his experience in his novel The Homesteader, which later became the first all-black film.

The novelist organized a film corporation in 1918 and made more than thirty-five films. Micheaux Film Corporation was the longest lived and most productive black film company.

In 1948, Micheaux made his last movie, The Betrayal, about a black South Dakota homesteader in love with a white woman. The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame annually honors blacks in films in Micheaux's memory.

A more detailed profile is printed in Volume 18 Number 3 of South Dakota History, the journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society.