Background
Cripps, Thomas Robert was born on September 17, 1932 in Baltimore. Son of Benjamin Franklin and Marian Norma Cripps.
(Slow Fade to Black is a perceptive social commentary on r...)
Slow Fade to Black is a perceptive social commentary on racial attitudes in this country during the first four decades of the twentieth century. You will find many pictures of the characters played by African Americans.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009W52QJ2/?tag=2022091-20
(This is the second volume of Thomas Cripps's definitive h...)
This is the second volume of Thomas Cripps's definitive history of African-Americans in Hollywood. It covers the period from World War II through the civil rights movement of the 1960s, examining this period through the prism of popular culture. Making Movies Black shows how movies anticipated and helped form America's changing ideas about race. Cripps contends that from the liberal rhetoric of the war years--marked as it was by the propaganda catchwords brotherhood and tolerance--came movies that defined a new African-American presence both in film and in American society at large. He argues that the war years, more than any previous era, gave African-American activists access to centers of cultural influence and power in both Washington and Hollywood. Among the results were an expanded black imagery on the screen during the war--in combat movies such as Bataan, Crash Dive, and Sahara; musicals such as Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky; and government propaganda films such as The Negro Soldier and Wings for this Man (narrated by Ronald Reagan!). After the war, the ideologies of both black activism and integrationism persisted, resulting in the 'message movie' era of Pinky, Home of the Brave, and No Way Out, a form of racial politics that anticipated the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. Delving into previously inaccessible records of major Hollywood studios, among them Warner Bros., RKO, and 20th Century-Fox, as well as records of the Office of War Information in the National Archives, and records of the NAACP, and interviews with survivors of the era, Cripps reveals the struggle of both lesser known black filmmakers like Carlton Moss and major figures such as Sidney Poitier. More than a narrative history, Making Movies Black reaches beyond the screen itself with sixty photographs, many never before published, which illustrate the mood of the time. Revealing the social impact of the classical Hollywood film, Making Movies Black is the perfect book for those interested in the changing racial climate in post-World War II American life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195076699/?tag=2022091-20
(Set against the backdrop of the black struggle in society...)
Set against the backdrop of the black struggle in society, Slow Fade to Black is the definitive history of African-American accomplishment in film--both before and behind the camera--from the earliest movies through World War II. As he records the changing attitudes toward African-Americans both in Hollywood and the nation at large, Cripps explores the growth of discrimination as filmmakers became more and more intrigued with myths of the Old South: the "lost cause" aspect of the Civil War, the stately mansions and gracious ladies of the antebellum South, the "happy" slaves singing in the fields. Cripps shows how these characterizations culminated in the blatantly racist attitudes of Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and how this film inspired the N.A.A.C.P. to campaign vigorously--and successfully--for change. While the period of the 1920s to 1940s was one replete with Hollywood stereotypes (blacks most often appeared as domestics or "natives," or were portrayed in shiftless, cowardly "Stepin Fetchit" roles), there was also an attempt at independent black production--on the whole unsuccessful. But with the coming of World War II, increasing pressures for a wider use of blacks in films, and calls for more equitable treatment, African-Americans did begin to receive more sympathetic roles, such as that of Sam, the piano player in the 1942 classic Casablanca. A lively, thorough history of African-Americans in the movies, Slow Fade to Black is also a perceptive social commentary on evolving racial attitudes in this country during the first four decades of the twentieth century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195021304/?tag=2022091-20
Cripps, Thomas Robert was born on September 17, 1932 in Baltimore. Son of Benjamin Franklin and Marian Norma Cripps.
Bachelor of Science in Education, Towson State Teachers College, 1954. Master of Arts in History, University Maryland, 1957. Doctor of Philosophy in History and Literature, University Maryland, 1967.
Teacher Milford Mill Junior High School, Pikesville, Maryland, 1954-1955. Assistant professor Pembroke (North Carolina) State College, 1957-1958, Harford Junior College, Bel Air, Maryland, 1958-1961. University Distinguished professor emeritus Morgan State University, Baltimore, 1961-1996.
Retired, 1996
Producer, writer Westinghouse Broadcasting, Baltimore, 1968-1971. Visiting professor Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, 1969-1970, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991-1993. Adjunct professor, Johns Hopkins University, 2003.
(Set against the backdrop of the black struggle in society...)
(Slow Fade to Black is a perceptive social commentary on r...)
(This is the second volume of Thomas Cripps's definitive h...)
Member faculty Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, 1965. Board managers Black Rock Young Men’s Christian Association, Timonium, Maryland, 1971. Board chairman Baltimore Film Festival, 1974-1975.
Member Maryland Humanities Commission, Baltimore, 1976-1981. Served with 101st Airborne, United States Army, 1955. Member American Association of University Professors, American History Association, International Association Media and History, Organization American Historians, Society Cinema Studies, Edelweiss Society.
Married Alma Richardson Taliaferro, December 26, 1954 (deceased March 1994). Children: Benjamin Taliaferro, Alma Richardson (deceased), Paul Hagan (deceased). Married Lynn Ann, June 24, 1995.
Stepchildren: Jason Ransdell, Brian Ransdell.