NFR Project: 'Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina, May 1940'

 

NFR Project: ‘Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina May 1940’

Dir: Zora Neale Huston

Recorded 1940

42 min.

This is one I know only reputationally. I have no access to the actual footage. Therefore, I must point you to Fayth M. Parks’ excellent essay on it here.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a prominent and influential anthropologist and folklorist. She was recruited to go to this congregation in Beaufort, South Carolina, and to record their social and religious activities. This she did on May 18 and 19, 1940 – generating non-synchronous sound recordings at the same time. Prayers, songs, and sermons are documented.

It is thought to be invaluable for its insights into Black American vernacular culture. No one paid attention to the lives of ordinary people, let alone Black American people, on film; evidently this footage provides a rare glimpse into the social life of a certain race and class in America, and does so honestly. That in itself is a minor miracle.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Dance, Girl, Dance.