Within Our Gate is the first silent film ever produced by African- American for African American about race in the United States from 1894 to 1950. This film is the first of forty-four film, which Oscar Micheaux wrote through his life. After 80 minutes, the movie includes many situations about love, betrayal, volunteer, crime, murder, violation, and racism. These are all related with the protagonist, Sylvia Landry, who is an African American young girl. Oscar Micheaux tries to use Sylvia's life to show how the racism and the violation of how white people behave toward black people, who migrated from the South to the North America.
Sylvia Landry had a happy family with her parents and her younger brother until racist situations occurred. She was adopted and raised by a poor black family, the Landry's family. Her adopted-mother really loved her, as she "love Sylvia like mother." The younger brother, Emily saw her as "the most perfect girl in the world." Jasper Landry, her father, was a workman, and was described as a "typical of the thousands of poor Negro laborers in the Great Delta, lacking education and the vote, but in whose heart burned an eternal hope." He worked for a wealthy landlord, Philip Gridlestone, who was described as a "modern Nero, feared by the Negroes envied and hated by white farmers." The bad situation of Landry's family began when Mr. Landry went to the house of Gridlestone to pay money. Mr. Landry became smarter because Sylvia helped him to carefully manage his account. In the conversation in the Gridlestone's house, Gridlestone warned Jasper: "And remember that white man make the law in this country," "I have always treated the colored well, but I remember that my father, who own a thousand slave had callouses on his hand, from and he show me that was the only way to keep 'em in line'." While Gridlestone said that, he pushed Mr.
