There was another Hollywood that thrived once upon a time. From the 1910s to the 1950s, an independent Black American film industry catered to its own segregated audience, had its own African American directors, stars and studios. The movies they produced, the first alternative American “indie” cinema, are known as “race movies”. Of more than 500 motion pictures made, nearly all have been destroyed or damaged and are now considered to be lost films. To understand how race mov