Oscar Micheaux was one of first African American film directors, and, like Spike Lee in BlacKkKlansman, uses Within Our Gates (1920) to engage in a critical dialogue with D. W. Griffith’s epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), a pro-Ku Klux Klan film that both Micheaux and Lee suggest has been a contributing factor to anti-black violence.

Within Our Gates focuses on the character Sylvia Landry, who is dedicated to raising money to support the education of black children, and whose tragic past is revealed in series of flashbacks, including a shocking sequence (which resulted in the widespread censorship and outright banning of the film) depicting the lynching of her parents at the hands of a white vigilante mob.

Within Our Gates has been preserved and restored by the Library of Congress, and was released in 2016 mastered in HD, and with a new soundtrack composed by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky).