Pearl Bowser

Pearl Bowser ( Johnson; June 25, 1931 – September 14, 2023) was an American author, collector, television director, film scholar, film director, producer, filmmaker, independent distributor and film archivist. Along with her peers Mel Roman and Charles Hobson, Bowser researched and curated "The Black Film" retrospective at the Jewish Museum in 1970. This prompted a new wave of public interest into "exhibiting, producing, and engaging with African American cinema beyond borders". Most of her exalted career was spent traveling the globe in order to cultivate audiences for marginalized filmmakers. An example of her efforts, and also her most groundbreaking work, manifested in her research on "early-1900s Black film pioneer Oscar Micheaux".

Early life Pearl Bowser was born Pearl Johnson on June 25,1931, in Sugar Hill, Harlem, New York, as the youngest of seven children. She was named after her mother, also Pearl Johnson, who was a domestic worker. She frequented the movie theaters of Harlem along 125th street watching "Hollywood Westerns, B-movies and whatever black films were out at the time." Bowser was exposed to a lot of racism growing up. She even recalled one of her white kindergarten teachers wearing gloves so as not to touch the Black students. Despite this, she excelled academically all throughout high school and attended Brooklyn College on a scholarship. Disappointed with the level of education she received there, she dropped out to work at CBS as a Nielsen rating analyzer.

Filmography Namibia: Independence Now! (1985) Wild Women Don't Have the Blues (1989) Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux and the Story of Black Movies (1994) The Watermelon Woman (1996) Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film & Video (1998) That's Black Entertainment: Westerns (2002) Secrets of New York (2005) In the Shadow of Hollywood: Race Movies and the Birth of Black Cinema (2007)

Publications Writing Himself Into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences, 2000, Rutgers University Press The History of Black Film, article in Black Film Review. Oscar Micheaux and His Circle (Catalog)