Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

A historical marker to filmmaker Oscar Micheaux has been erected on Henry Street in Roanoke. One official hopes it is the first in a series that will honor Gainsboro neighborhood residents. The marker has two errors, including the birth year.

Courtesy of the Verna Crowe Collection and WGBH Boston's "The American Experience"

Courtesy of Kathryn McCain

Pioneering black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux kept an office in the theater building at 109 Henry St. N.W. in Roanoke's Gainsboro neighborhood in the mid-1920s. At that time, the building was home to the historic Strand Theatre and later became the Lincoln Theatre.

The 1925 Roanoke, Salem and Vinton directory shows Oscar Micheaux, under an alternate spelling, living at the Hampton Hotel.

Roanoke's newest historical marker pays tribute to a groundbreaking filmmaker who completed some of his most vital work while based on Henry Street in the city's historic Gainsboro neighborhood.

Oscar Micheaux is internationally recognized as the first black man to direct a feature-length film. Over three decades, he made more than 40 movies, most of which were screened in theaters that catered to black audiences during the Jim Crow era.

Taken in a historical context, Micheaux's work provides a counterpoint to movies such as D.W. Griffith's 1915 "Birth of a Nation," which used a variety of inflammatory techniques to depict black people as lazy and lecherous.

During the city's dedication of the marker Thursday, Roanoke Vice Mayor Sherman Lea said that Micheaux played a number of roles through his life, ranging from author to South Dakotan homesteader.

But "his most exceptional role was as a leading American filmmaker who wasn't allowed to set foot in Hollywood because of the racism of his time," Lea said.

"In an era when black people were ignored or belittled by Hollywood, Oscar Micheaux worked under difficult circumstances to create his own distinctive body of work. He possessed both storytelling skills and a social conscience, and drew repeatedly on his own life story to articulate universal themes concerning the black experience, working out deeply personal feelings about America and his people's place within it," Lea said.

The historical marker bears two errors: It incorrectly lists Micheaux's year of birth as 1893 instead of 1884, and it misidentifies Roanoke businessman Albert Brooks.

John Kern, director of the Roanoke Regional Preservation Office, said those mistakes should be fixed on a new sign scheduled to arrive in about two months.

Several speakers at the marker's dedication noted the rehabilitation of buildings on historic Henry Street, where Micheaux lived and worked during the mid-1920s, as a sign of hope that more will come. Ted Edlich, chief executive officer for Total Action Against Poverty, which played a key role in that rehab process, said he hopes that Micheaux's marker will be but the first in a series. He envisioned a "walkway of fame" to include other famous Gainsboro residents "so that others can come and see the visual history of this place."

Micheaux was born in Illinois. A couple of years after directing his first film -- "The Homesteader," produced in 1919 -- he contacted Roanokers seeking financial support for his film corporation.

A letter from Micheaux to J.H. Roberts of Roanoke touts his corporation's efforts to "take the message of the Black man, on the screen, to every part of the civilized world" as something that "every race man and woman can keenly appreciate."

By 1923, Micheaux had opened an office in the historic Strand Theatre, which was owned by Roanoke businessman Brooks. And Micheaux was living, at least part of the time, across Henry Street in what's now known as the Dumas Center for Artistic & Cultural Development.

"It's really the history of black entertainment and commerce on Henry Street," Kern said. "From 1923 to 1925 the office of the Micheaux Film Corporation is in the Strand, and he was boarding at the Dumas across the street. What survived of the black commercial district on Henry Street was those two buildings, both rehabilitated with state and federal tax credits."

The former Strand Theatre at 109 Henry St. N.W. was later called the Lincoln Theatre, the Morocco Club and the Ebony Lounge. Today, it's part of the Claude Moore Educational Complex where the Culinary Institute at Virginia Western trains aspiring chefs.

Micheaux made up to a half-dozen feature-length films while he was in Roanoke. After leaving Roanoke, he moved to New York City and gained fame as part of the Harlem Renaissance.

One of his most notable pictures filmed in Roanoke was "The House Behind the Cedars," produced in 1927. No remaining prints exist, but the film included scenes of a garden party shot in the 400 block of Gilmer Avenue, as well as an appearance by Oliver Hill, who grew up on the block and eventually became a prominent civil rights attorney who filed one of the cases that helped end school segregation.

The Virginia State Board of Censors rejected the film for its depiction of an interracial couple.

Micheaux's filming occasionally startled locals. A Roanoke Times story from September 1922 described how members of a business association "were rather surprised when the picture was flashed on the screen and they saw Highland Park in the midst of a shocking drama scene and later the streets of the city with ebony skinned cowboys dashing madly past."

A brief next to the story describes a screening of Micheaux's "The Virgin of the Seminoles" at the Jefferson Theatre and mentions that "The House Behind the Cedars" will be the next film to be made.

Staff librarian Belinda Harris contributed to this report.