These striking, colorful posters, selected from the more than onethousand housed at Indiana University's Black Film Center/Archive, graphicallyillustrate the artistic and thematic range of racial representation in the Americanfilm industry from its early days through the present. Chosen for their value ascultural artifacts, they combine art and commerce and are richly imbued withhistorical and social meanings that continue to engage and inform. The earliestposters, such as the one from pioneering black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, representtruly independent productions. That crop of "race movies," dating from thelate 1920s through the early 1940s, targeted a black audience hungry for respectfulimages of themselves. In Hollywood films, however, black life was often presented incontorted and narrowly defined ways, reflective of America's racial morass. Yet as awhole, the posters managed to capture the artistry, if not the full range, of blackperformance.

Many of these posters appear in the touringexhibition "Imaging Blackness: Film Posters from the Black FilmCenter/Archive." Since they were originally produced as ephemera that wouldfollow the distribution of the film and return to the studio, it is surprising thatso many early posters featuring African Americans are still in existence. Thiscollection includes some of the rarer examples.

In addition totheir relative merit as commercial art, the posters are visual cues to the socialconstruction of race in our society as revealed by that most potent dream merchant, the Hollywood film industry. Designed to catch the eye, they also offer a windowinto the history of race relations in the 20th-century U.S. In his foreword to thecollection, filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles notes the evolution of how blacks wereportrayed in the posters. Ever so slowly, he writes, "you begin to see a fewblack faces minus the shovels and trays." These incremental changes are notablebecause they show the long, slow, and continuing struggle of blacks to alter racialperceptions -- as well as reality -- in the film industry.