“I was struck by the beauty of the scenery…. Stretching for miles to the northwest and to the south, the land would rise in a gentle slope to a hogback, and as gentle slope away to a draw, which drained to the south. Here the small streams emptied into a larger one, winding along the snake’s track, and thickly wooded with a growth of small hardwood timber. It was beautiful. From each side the land rose gently like huge wings, and spread away as far as the eye could reach.”
~ The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer, by Oscar Micheaux
Today the U.S. Postal Service releases the 44-cent Oscar Micheaux commemorative stamp, the 33rd stamp in the Black Heritage series. On my recent visit to my family’s farm in South Dakota (where I took the above photo), I was keenly aware of how well Micheaux’s descriptions of the land captured its vast beauty. Every time I return home, if even for a few days, I breathe in the landscape until my lungs and heart are full to the brim, and both I and the world are rebooted.
I first became aware of Oscar when doing some family research about the Rosebud Indian Reservation during the first part of the 20th century, and I learned that he had owned land in both Tripp County and Gregory County, where my grandparents lived. Micheaux is perhaps best known for his film making, but I was most fascinated by his childhood, his life as a homesteader, and his career as a novelist, all of which I was drawn to explore further in a work of historical fiction for children.
Patrick Mcgilligan writes of Oscar’s early education in his biography Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker:
“He described his Metropolis schooling as inadequate in many respects. In his books he criticized his teachers… as ‘inefficient,’ and bemoaned the distance between his home and the school on the west side of town….
“Micheux insisted he always received ‘good grades’ in his Metropolis school days, but he felt unappreciated by those who tutored him. ‘About the only thing for which I was given credit was for learning readily,’ Micheaux recollected, ‘but was continually critiqued for talking too much and being too inquisitive.”
Learn more at Don Shorock’s Oscar Micheaux website and in this video tribute to Micheaux (click here if the video does not load):
An Oscar Micheaux Education Kit (a pdf file) is available from the USPS.
Do you know any young pioneers who talk a lot and are “too inquisitive”?
Where might those traits eventually lead them?
A fantastic post on a pretty historic day for Micheaux fans who grew up on the Rosebud. I guess when I was a ‘young pioneer’ in west-river SD, watching the vapor trails of the B-52 bombers out of Ellsworth air base, I dreamed I’d end up a little further away than St Paul, MN but it’s great to see that Oscar made it all the way to NYC and his own stamp. I guess I would have preferred that the USPS had used the ‘young pioneer’ photograph from The Conquest for the new stamp, but I’m still pretty excited about this day.
I’m really happy that Pearl Bowser was part of the celebration in NYC. She has done a lot to spread the story of Oscar Micheaux.
Thanks for the excellent blog post,
Fred Schwartz
St. Paul, MN
Fred, thank you so much for such a generous comment! I didn’t make it much farther east than you did (Milwaukee). It is quite amazing to me how captivating the person of Oscar Micheaux is to me and to so many others. He was wonderfully complex. This is an exciting day.
Best wishes,
Lisa