Oscar Devereaux Micheaux sunrise 1/2/1884, Metropolis, Illinois, sunset 3/25/51, Charlotte, North Carolina.

He had 12 siblings.

He moved to Chicago at 17, worked as a waiter, in the stockyards, and steel mills. He owned a shoeshine stand and was a Pullman porter, traveled and heard a long of stories.

He moved to Dallas, South Dakota and was a homesteader.

He wrote for The Chicago Defender.

He wrote seven novels, one, The Homesteader was dedicated to Booker T. Washington.

Founded Micheaux Film & Book Company of Sioux City. The Homesteader was his first feature film.

He wrote, directed, adapted, and produced more than 40 films.

He said of his work:

My results might have been narrow at times, due perhaps to certain limited situations, which I endeavored to portray, but in those limited situations, the truth was the predominate characteristic. It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in the light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights. I am too imbued with the spirit of Booker T. Washington to engraft false virtues upon ourselves, to make ourselves that which we are not.

His gravestone reads A man ahead of his time.