VIDEO: Museum of Modern Art Presents Screenings of Rare 1913 Bert Williams Film, LIME KILN CLUB FIELD DAY

Bert Williams, who passed away in 1922 at the age of 47, was one of Broadway's biggest stars and one of its most tragic figures.

Born in the Bahamas, Williams rose through vaudeville to become the first black entertainer to play leading roles on Broadway. Beginning in 1910 he starred in eight editions of the ZIEGFELD FOLLIES. Producer Florenz Ziegfeld didn't hesitate to fire any white star who complained about sharing the stage with a black man, saying that anyone is replaceable except Bert Williams.

As a singing comedian, he skewered the racist conventions of minstrelsy, brilliantly performing inventive routines with legitimate pathos. But as much as white audiences enjoyed him on stage and in recordings, there were still restaurants, hotels and bars that refused to take his business, and he was required to appear on stage in blackface makeup.

On January 17th and 18th at 7pm, New York's Museum of Modern Art presents their last two screening of LIME KILN CLUB FIELD DAY, an abandoned 1913 silent film showing Bert Williams during the height of his popularity.

At a time when blacks on film were exclusively depicted as criminals and other immoral types, Williams and a group of black performers ventured to the Bronx to film eighty minutes of footage telling a wholesome love story that, shockingly, included a sweet, romantic kiss.

The white producers lost interest in the project and what became of the footage was left unknown until 2014, when it was discovered in the museum's Biograph Studio collection as seven reels of untitled and unassembled footage.

Watch a brief glimpse of the film below and visit moma.org.

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