The invention of film made an indelible effect on not just entertainment, but politics and society as we know it. Central to that story was how film was used to depict and shape society’s view of Black people.
Award-winning author and cultural critic David Walker explores this in his new book “Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies.” Coming off the success of his graphic novel “Big Jim and the White Boy: An American Classic Reimagined,” as well as Eisner Awards for the graphic novels “Bitter Root” and “The Black Panther Party,” Walker’s new book highlights and analyzes Black actors, films and filmmakers, as well as the conditions that shaped their work — from the silent era to the release of “Sinners.” It delves into the influence of imagery and film, noting that some of the earliest films included titles like “A Watermelon Contest” (1896) and “A Dancing Darkey Boy” (1897).
Black Film also looks into how minstrel shows were a foundation of early film. Between 1900 and 1920, filmmakers produced 155 films with white performers in blackface, including titles like the “Wooing and Wedding of a Coon” (1905) and “The Dancing Nig” (1907).
Throughout, Walker seeks to contextualize the choices of Black actors and filmmakers within different eras. He celebrates pioneers like Oscar Micheaux, explores how blaxploitation saved the film industry in the face of white flight and analyzes the meaning of recent awards and box office hits for the future of Black representation in film.
Walker’s new book comes during another major shift in how we consume images and information.
Specifically, the rise of artificial intelligence and its increasing ubiquity in all aspects of our daily lives warrants more analysis on the intersection of technological advancements, Black representation and public policy.
Major tech companies have targeted Oregon communities for data center expansion due to the climate and friendly tax breaks, while some elected officials are calling for a moratorium. Many of these conversations center on the draining of water and power resources, but there is also discussion around the technology’s sociological implications. A 2025 survey by the Brookings Institute found that 57% of respondents use AI for personal purposes, while 40% reported increased usage over the past year and 20% use it for professional tasks. Usage increases significantly based on how many degrees a person has earned.
That has real world implications, considering that AI’s issues with what has been termed “algorithmic racism” are as prevalent as the technology itself. There is no shortage of studies and reports detailing how generative AI reflects and in many cases amplifies systemic racism and anti-Blackness in particular. A 2023 Bloomberg investigation found that AI persistently stereotypes darker skinned people in lower paying jobs while an NPR investigation that same year failed to prompt AI to generate a picture of African doctors with white patients despite 150 attempts. There has also been a rise in digital blackface, specifically with creators using AI to make fake Black personalities, often promoting anti-Black stereotypes, such as a fake account that went viral in late 2025 for making videos bragging about food stamp fraud.
Street Roots spoke with David Walker about Black Film and what rapid advancements in AI could mean for Black representation in the film industry.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Was there a particular significance in the timing of this book?
David Walker: I got lucky. When the 2025 release of the book got pushed back, it got pushed like two weeks after “Sinners” had come out. And I remember watching “Sinners” and seeing this culmination of all of film history, technology and craft in one movie.
But when I skim through the book now, I usually stop around the 1970s. That’s the part of the book that I’m most proud of, all the stuff from especially, the silent era and the 20s and 30s. There’s so much of that stuff that was covered in earlier books that are all out of print. That was my philosophy. The harder it is to find the information, the more I would like to have that information available in this book.
With this book, you do a lot as far as contextualizing advancements in film in the context of what was happening socio-politically. Why is the socio-political context so important?
Walker: It’s really easy in 2026 to sit back and look at what people were doing, say, in 1926 or 1916 in film with this sort of judgmental attitude, talking about how problematic these things are. You can talk about how problematic it is, but give us context. If you’re not giving us context, it is a very close relative to erasing history, in my mind.
This book was really important for talking about actors like Stepin Fetchit and Willie Best, people who history has not been kind to. Most people don’t even know who Stepin Fetchit was and then if you talk about him, you say he did a lot of problematic performances. Lincoln Perry, who was Stepin Fetchit’s real name: let’s talk about how he was a journalist before he was a film actor. Let’s talk about how he was part of Muhammad Ali’s training camp when Muhammad Ali was still Cassius Clay. He was friends with Jack Johnson and he is the link that connects Jack Johnson to Cassius Clay. Let’s talk about those things. Don’t just say, you know, oh, Stepin and Fetchit was a stereotype and he played the shiftless coon.
This book really goes into how the Uncle Tom stereotype was influenced by film adaptations. Can you talk more about that?
Walker: I knew how the book was received when it came out and then somehow, the image got co-opted, but I had never read anything about the films. I realized there were a lot of versions of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the early days of film. Why is that? And then it’s like, oh, wait a sec, it was a play? Oh, wait a sec, the play was not an authorized adaptation? The play is where the character got shifted, where the blackface minstrel aesthetic was introduced to the narrative.
How do you not put that in there? I feel like I’m an amateur historian and a semi-pro journalist but, I feel like this is what critical analysis should be doing.
One of the places you really credit in the acknowledgements is the Western States Black Research and Education Center. Can you talk a little bit more about it?
Walker: Dr. Mamie Clayton had the Western States Black Resource Center. I made a documentary about blaxploitation films in the late 90s, and she was one of the people that I met and I interviewed. At the time, she had one of the most massive collections of film, and literature, and ephemera, and it was all this stuff about the history of Black film. I didn’t realize how much more there was to learn.
I was trying to get in touch with Dr. Clayton when I found out that she had passed. For the longest time, the Western States Black Resource Center was a shed in her backyard.
I believe that most of the collection was at UCLA, and so that’s where I was able to see a couple films from her collection. Then you just start meeting other people, and somebody knows somebody, and they tell you that you should read this book that was written in 1948 and has been out of print forever. That’s the thing when you’re looking at Black history. History in and of itself is very poorly recorded. Black history is especially not well-preserved. And there’s some people who’ve taken it into their own hands to do it.
You may not know who they are. The biggest wealth of information I found was a collection in UCLA that you can only look at in person. You gotta go down there and it was a collection of material from 1916 to 1970, maybe?
All of these biases, all these stereotypes, all these cliches, all this negativity, it was all written down, but it was written on paper. You can burn paper, but film was like having it written in stone, and it’s really hard to burn stone.
Now, one of my missions in life is to figure out what to do. I’ve been in the process of paying, out of my own pocket, paying UCLA to scan and digitize all of these files.
Our history, Black history, has always been [something] you gotta keep close to your chest because it might get you in trouble. The truth might get you in trouble.
A lot of this book is about pushing back, and a lot of it’s about really trying to understand how this idea of what it means to be Black was thrust upon us, thrust upon Black people, presented to the world as, “this is who Black people are, this is what they’re all about.”
All of these biases, all these stereotypes, all these cliches, all this negativity, it was all written down, but it was written on paper. You can burn paper, but film was like having it written in stone, and it’s really hard to burn stone.
How do you see things like AI and especially deepfakes affecting representation?
Walker: I think it’s more of history repeating itself. I see these videos that pop up on YouTube and Instagram, and they’re clearly AI-generated videos. They’re like, “If you want to know more about Black history, click like and subscribe to our channel.”
AI is a tool. The tools don’t scare me. The people wielding the tools scare me.
When I think about AI, I think about how when I was coming up and I wanted to be a writer and filmmaker, those tools were not readily available. They weren’t readily affordable. Now all of those tools are much more affordable, much more available, accessible. Which is a good thing, but when you’re not teaching young people how to think critically, when you’re banning books and punishing people for speaking out, then you’re creating a society that has the tools but doesn’t know what to do with it.
We’re at a point now where they’re giving us the tools to create that stuff ourselves, so we don’t have to rely on movies, because we can make our own movies. We can make our own videos, and that’s the problem. It really isn’t the tool. It is the person using a tool.
Staying on AI, there are a lot of people saying, “You’re going to be left behind if you don’t pick this up.” Would you use AI?
Walker: I can’t say never, but I can tell you I haven’t even used it to clean out my inbox. I don’t have any desire to try it. I especially don’t have any desire to try it in a creative capacity.
I tell people this story all the time, though. In the late 80s, I was in community college. Our class took a field trip to a design studio and they showed us this computer that they had set up. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie.
They showed me that demonstration and I was like, everything they’re teaching us in school right now is going to be obsolete in the next 2 years. I’m like 18, 19 years old. I thought this was the death of graphic design. No. It was the death of an old way of doing things.
Technology changes and it changes how things are done. Again, it’s how you use the tools and it’s the people using the tools that make a big difference.
With AI, it just doesn’t interest me because I’m comfortable in how I handle my creativity, even when I struggle with stuff. If it’s not coming to me, I know that it will because I’ve done this long enough. I’ll go take a walk around the block or watch some episodes of Star Trek and that’ll get my brain going again. I don’t need AI.
This article appears in May 20, 2026.