I had wanted to see this film-- and many others by Micheaux-- for decades, and was relieved to see that TCM presented it as part of a restoration project (DVDs are also being released).

There's no doubt that Micheaux occupies a significant and often mercurial place in American film history. He directed films from the silent era well beyond the conversion to sound, confronting concerns about African Americans' experiences through a wide range of stories, and yet many of his works have been lost forever.

In this case of this film, the first two reels are missing, but the restoration has preserved that part of the story with script notes and stills that introduce the action. Thereafter, the tale of a Harvard-educated black man, who returns to his southern town to face racist attitudes and family strife, conveys sincere and articulate statements about relevant political issues of that period that still resonate today.

You will quickly recognize hallmarks of low-budget conditions, such as insert shots that often break continuity, but the film remains a vital testament to racial conditions in the 1930s as the culture was overcoming the Depression and about to head into another major war. Micheaux also has a prescient sense for the civil rights movement that would energize the next generation.

I hope that further work is done to locate and preserve these historical artifacts, which help us to understand our past beyond the dominant Hollywood tradition that has otherwise absorbed all the attention.

This film, from what I know and have seen of it, really is exceptional, quite well filmed and cast for its time. It recounts the uphill struggle that even a well educated black man faced (the handsome protagonist educated at Harvard University, at that!). Alas, its availability is quite limited. Even if there were earlier versions and remakes, silent as well as sound movies, this one deserves wider rediscovery.

For some fairly extended scenes sampled from the film, there are bits of it included on the 2008 DVD anthology, "Jammin', Jumpin', and Jivin': All Black Cast Classics. vol. 2" (Something Weird Video. available on its own WWW site).

This was the third of five films bearing the title: BIRTHRIGHT. This film was produced by the Micheaux Pictures Corporation by Oscar Micheaux and released in 1939. Micheaux was inclined to adapt from his screenplays from novels. Micheaux based this one on T.S. Stribling's novel of the same title which was about a black student who graduated from Harvard University who confronted the racism of of his time. The film had a subtitle also, it was: A Story of the Negro and the South, it referred to the heroic young man in his attempt to found a school for African-American children in a small town in Tennessee so as to "Uplift the Race," a phrase used by Spike Lee half a century later. Micheaux also made the earlier silent-movie of the same title in 1924.