African Americans and the Oscar: Decades of Struggle and Achievement

African Americans and the Oscar highlights the advancements Black performers have made on the silver screen and how those performances were honored by the Academy. Edward Mapp profiles all the nominees and recipients of the coveted award in the acting, writing, and directing categories, providing valuable information about how the role or film was viewed during its time and placing it in historical context by drawing connections to other related awards or events in film history.

Edward Mapp is professor emeritus of Speech and Communications, City University of New York. He is the author of Blacks in American Films: Today and Yesterday (Scarecrow, 1972) and Directory of Blacks in the Performing Arts (Scarecrow, 1990), and co-author of A Separate Cinema, Fifty Years of Black-Cast Posters. His vast collection of original Black-cast film posters was presented in 1996 to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its Margaret Herrick Library.