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Dark Iris: A Digital Resources on the History of Black Women’s Media-making

Due to the white supremacist logic of American filmmaking, Black women have been historically and systematically been denied access from the practice of making films in America, whether it was discrimination at the level of hiring, union membership or the forbidding practices of segregation more generally.  However, many Black women persevered to make a decisive impact on the screen and on defining its images. This website is dedicated to bringing to light the lives and legacies of these Black women and, crucially, to providing documentation, resources and information about them so that scholars, educators, activists, writers and students can begin to more accurately tell their stories and experience this past that is an important part of the American narrative.