This is by the pioneer of all-black filmmaking, Oscar Micheaux, an innovator who, between 1918 and 1940, wrote, produced, directed, and personally distributed nearly thirty films. Robeson, in his first film, played a dissolute "Jackleg" preacher who is revealed to have a double life as a spy for the forces of good. This plot confusion-the result of the film not passing the New York censors-essentially gave Robeson a dual challenge, allowing him, as Thomas Cripps wrote in Fade to Black, "to make a sensitive measurement of black character in American film." He is a tremendous presence in the film, which secured his place as the black screen sensation of the twenties.