The Blood of Jesus

Followed by a panel discussion featuring Dr. Michele Prettyman and Dr. David Bering-Porter 

Dir. Spencer Williams. 1941, 58 mins. U.S. DCP sourced from the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection at Southern Methodist University. With Spencer Williams, Cathryn Caviness, James B. Jones, Rogenia Goldthwaite, Juanita Riley. This is the first feature film directed by pioneering filmmaker Spencer Williams, whose screenplay was inspired by a Langston Hughes poem. Full of fantastic symbolism, this American drama follows Baptist newlywed Martha Jackson (Caviness) on a spiritual journey after she is accidentally shot by her husband Razz Jackson (Williams). In the afterlife, she encounters Satan (Jones) and a false prophet who tests her beliefs while the Angel (Goldthwaite) offers guidance. By Martha’s bedside, a choir of sisters and brothers from the church pray for her salvation and sing gospel songs such as “Amazing Grace” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The Blood of Jesus offers a glimpse into Southern Baptist life from a Black American perspective and remains one of the most highly regarded films of Williams’s career, featuring impressive, stylistic visuals and an unforgettable soundtrack. 

Following the screening, Dr. Michele Prettyman and Dr. David Bering-Porter will discuss Black representation on screen, the legacy of Spencer Williams’s The Blood of Jesus and his films produced in Texas, and the importance of juke joints in Black American history. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / free for MoMI members at the Senior/Student level and above. There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. 

Join us for a double feature presentation of Spencer Williams’s Juke Joint and The Blood of Jesus, if you purchase this discounted combination ticket here. 

David Bering-Porter is Assistant Professor of Culture and Media at The New School in New York City. David has lectured, taught, and published on zombie movies and other forms of Black horror at the intersections of film, digital media, and technology. His current book project is a study of Undead Labor and the ways that race, labor, and value come together in the mediated body of the zombie as well as other examples of biological excess and his academic writing has appeared in journals such as Culture Machine, Critical Inquiry, Flow, MIRAJ, Post 45, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

Dr. Michele Prettyman is a scholar of African American cinema and visual culture. She is currently a screenwriter, consultant, and professor in Fordham University’s Department of Communication and Media Studies and her research explores Black experimental filmmaking, the film practices of black women, and black visual culture as a spiritual encounter. Her work has been published in a number of important anthologies and journals including Black Cinema & Visual Culture: Art and Politics in the 21 Century, Black Camera, and the award-winning liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies. Michele often engages public audiences and is featured alongside Chuck D, the late John Singleton, and others in the documentary film Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking. She is also a co-founder of Daughters of Eve Media, a film and media consulting company which amplifies the work and voices of creatives of color. She has worked with a number of film festivals including the American Black Film Festival and in 2019 was named Artistic Director of the Tubman African American Museum’s inaugural film festival. Over many years she has interviewed writers, actors, and filmmakers like Julie Dash, Spike Lee, Sister Souljah, and Gabourey Sidibe and experimental filmmakers like Bradford Young, Elissa Blount Moorhead, and Ayoka Chenzira and her expertise has recently been featured in pieces published by the BBC, The Guardian, ABC Australia, and CBS New York.