The African American Contributions to Film Collection gathers advertising materials (such as flyers and posters), photographs, pressbooks, press kits, and Japanese programs for films and television series featuring Black Americans performers dating from 1934 to 2003. Stars represented by the collection include Dorothy Dandridge, Paul Robeson, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, James Earl Jones, Jim Brown, Richard Pryor, Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, Whoopi Goldberg, and Halle Berry.

Collection highlights include: pressbooks for Carmen Jones (1954), The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), and Zou Zou (1934); press kits for Do the Right Thing (1989) and Silver Streak (1976); photographic stills for The Defiant Ones (1958), Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), Purple Rain (1984), and Super Fly (1972); and Japanese programs for Cool Runnings (1993), Gothika (2003), Men in Black (1997), and The Nutty Professor (1996), among many others.

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