Way Down South

With a story, script, and songs co-written by Langston Hughes and prolific Black actor and writer Clarence Muse (who also stars), “Way Down South” is a pre-Civil War drama. As Hughes' first and last screenwriting effort, the film centers on a white child’s devotion and benevolence to the enslaved people his father left behind on his plantation. Upon its release, Hughes expressed his embarrassment for the lens work takes.