Rare Home Movie From the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers Has Been Preserved

We are pleased to share with the world a piece of history that was in danger of being lost forever.  “Home movie: Travel scenes in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, circa 1959” is an amateur film/home movie from the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers that Donna Guerra, our former Project Archivist, had the foresight to protect.  She successfully acquired a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to send the film to Colorlab for preservation.  The film is now available for anyone to watch streaming online.

This silent 16mm film, shot in the late 1950s, is one of three home movies that we are fortunate to have in the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers. Thanks go to Donna Guerra for all her hard work in making this film available to the public and preserving it for future generations!

Donna Guerra has enumerated a number of reasons why this is an important film to preserve and I include them, in her words, below:

• “Although other areas of the United States have 16mm films available that reflect African American life in the 1950s, I have not been able to locate such films by amateur or non-professional African American persons from the Southwest United States. Therefore, the relative dearth of access to such films, both regionally and locally in San Antonio, makes preservation of and access to our film of critical importance.  One local repository at the University of Texas at San Antonio holds a small quantity of archival materials created by local African Americans.  However, the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers stand alone as the most single and substantial (100 cubic feet) African American collection in San Antonio.  In addition, the two films already digitized are the only 16mm films created by African Americans from San Antonio in the 1950s that are available on the world wide web.  And further, preservation of this film would complement the two digitized films to which we already provide world wide web access.”
•  “One of the main contexts of the film is that it provides evidence that African Americans engaged in international travel, and that the impetus for this particular travel was faith-based.  Reverend Black was very involved with various local, regional, and national Baptist organizations.  Reverend and ZerNona Black, along with other United States attendees, were part of a Baptist World Alliance (BWA) travel group.  The BWA was established in 1905 in London, England, as a more liberal voice and often times has been a vocal defender of human rights.  The film provides a ground for sociopolitical considerations regarding the conditions that made it possible for African Americans to travel overseas in the 1950s.  Would travel have been made more possible as a faith-based activity, rather than for leisure alone?” 
•  “The particular portion of the film that takes place in London shows signage that reads, the ‘American League Incorporating the Coloured Peoples Benevolent Association Office,’ at 27 Red Lion Street, Holborn WCI.  There is a speaker standing, with a sign below him that says ‘Coloured Peoples Welfare’. After doing some research on the internet, in British web catalogs and in academic subscription databases, on the association names and the address, I was able to find very little.  I did find a small amount of evidence that revealed that the address of 27 Red Lion Street has historically been home to a variety of radical and socially progressive groups, including the Freedom Press, a radical bookshop and publisher… I believe the evidence of the event depicted at 27 Red Lion Street in the context of the BWA Golden Jubilee Congress holds excellent research value.”

 

•  “The rarity of African American home movies depicting work and social life, and events, puts the film in a rare category.”
•  “There is no real likelihood that the film exists in duplication anywhere, which qualifies it as rare and unique.”

We are grateful to the National Film Preservation Foundation, Colorlab, and Donna Guerra, for making it possible for us to share this rare film with you.