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Birthright is a 1924 silent film by American director Oscar Micheaux. Produced in 10 reels, it is adapted from Thomas Sigismund Stribling's novel of the same title (1922). The film is now lost.

The cast included J. Homer Tutt (as Peter Siner), Evelyn Preer (as Cissie Deldine), Salem Tutt Whitney (as Tump Pack), Lawrence Chenault, and W. B. F. Crowell. The film explores experiences of a young African-American man who returns to a small Tennessee town after getting a college degree. Of mixed-race (called mulatto in the book), he struggles against the systemic racial discrimination of his society around the First World War.

Micheaux later rewrote the adaptation, and co-produced and directed a new 35 mm version of Birthright as a talkie, in 1938. It had a new cast. He filmed it in New Jersey.

Cast

• J. Homer Tutt as Peter Siner
• Evelyn Preer as Cissie Deldine
• Salem Tutt Whitney as Tump Pack
• Lawrence Chenault

References

1. Couvares, Francis G., ed. (1996). Movie Censorship and American Culture. University of Massachusetts Press. p 173: "... from members of his own community who resented such depictions. It seems logical that Micheaux would anticipate criticism from both blacks and whites again in response to his 1924 film Birthright, which portrayed an African American ...

External links

• Birthright at IMDb
• Birthright at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films

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• 1924 films
• Films directed by Oscar Micheaux
• American silent feature films
• American black-and-white films
• Race films
• 1924 drama films
• 1920s American films
• 1920s silent drama film stubs