- Written by
- Rooney, Andrew, American, 1919 - 2011
- Wolff, Perry, American, 1921 - 2019
- Produced by
- CBS Broadcasting, Inc., American, founded 1927
- Subject of
- Cosby, Bill, American, born 1937
- Katharine Hepburn, American, 1907 - 2003
- McDaniel, Hattie, American, 1895 - 1952
- Moreland, Mantan, American, 1902 - 1973
- Fetchit, Stepin, American, 1902 - 1985
- Sanford, Isabel, American, 1917 - 2004
- Owned by
- D.C. Public Library, American, founded 1896
- Date
- 1968
- Medium
- acetate film
- Dimensions
- Duration: 27 Minutes
- Length (Film): 975 Feet
- Caption
- This film was a part of the Washington D.C. Public Library's circulating 16mm film collection housed at the Martin Luther King Jr. Central Library. The collection is particularly noted for the wide variety of African American and African diaspora content.
- Description
- A documentary film with the title “Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed” from the Of Black America television series. It consists of two (2) reels of color acetate film with optical sound.
- The documentary opens with narrator Bill Cosby discussing contributions that African Americans have made to American Life, such as Norbert Rillieux's contributions to refining sugar; Jan Ernst Matzeliger's contributions to shoe manufacturing; Matthew Henson being one of the first men to successfully make an expedition to the North Pole; and Daniel Hale Williams performing the world's first open-heart surgery. Cosby then questions why these pioneering African Americans were excluded from history textbooks. After discussing the innovations of African Americans, Cosby discusses a study which compares the way white children and black children view and represent the world around them through art.
- The rest of the documentary mostly focuses on African Americans in film. Cosby states that white filmmakers routinely represented black characters in ways that reinforced erroneous stereotypes of black people. He discusses films such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Birth of a Nation and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, as well as African American actors such as Stepin Fetchit, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Sidney Poitier and several others. In the final scenes, he comments on beauty culture and the practice of black men chemically straightening their hair, as well as shows footage of a man teaching a small class of young children the importance of black pride.
- Place used
- Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North and Central America
- Collection title
- DC Public Library Film Collection
- Portfolio/Series
- Of Black America
- Classification
- Time-based Media - Moving Images
- Movement
- Black Power (Black Pride)
- Topic
- Actors
- Beauty culture
- Documentary films
- Entertainers
- Film
- Race discrimination
- Science
- Stereotypes
- United States History
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Object number
- 2017.55.76.1a
- Restrictions & Rights
- Restrictions likely apply. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.




