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Context Film / TheSymbolOfTheUnconquered

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5[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0887_5.jpeg]]
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7->''Be strong my child and remember that in the worst moments of distress... you must never, never despair!''
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9''The Symbol of the Unconquered'' is a 1920 film directed by Oscar Micheaux. It's a RaceFilm aimed as a TakeThat against ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation|1915}}''. It is his second TakeThat at the film after ''Film/WithinOurGates'', which was released ten months earlier.
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11The story stars Eve Mason, a young black woman who inherits a cabin and a large amount of land after her grandfather's death. Eve soon leaves Alabama for her inheritance. She moves northwest to the fictional town of Oristown. Her first night in town, Eve tries to stay at Driscoll Hotel but its owner, Jefferson Driscoll, hates black people and forces her to sleep in the barn. The irony of the situation is that Jefferson himself is part-black and passing as white.
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13The next morning Eve comes across a young prospector named Hugh Van Allen. It turns out they're neighbors and the two become friends.
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15Trouble quickly ensues when two criminals, August Barr and his friend Tugi, want Eve's land. Things get worse when the duo enlist the help of the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan. In the end, the Klan is run out of town and all is well.
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17The only surviving print of the film is a version with French and Flemish intertitles. It's an incomplete copy with a few missing scenes.
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19!!This film provides example of:
20* AbusiveOffspring: In a flashback, Jefferson strangles his own mother (not to death, however).
21* BlackGalOnWhiteGuyDrama: The reason Jefferson hates his black side is because of a woman he was courting. She was white and didn't know he was half-black until she met his mother. She runs off because of the revelation.
22* BoomerangBigot: "Driscoll had developed a ferocious hatred for the black race, from which he was born."
23* DeletedScene: InUniverse. The surviving print is incomplete, and comes with a quote from a review attempting to describe the missing portion--which is, unfortunately, the climax of the film. So we never find out how Hugh defeated the bad guys and saved Eve and his land.
24* DomesticAbuse: August is emotionally and physically abusive towards his wife Mary.
25* {{Flashback}}: A flashback reveals why Jefferson conceals his race: he was dumped by his white girlfriend after she met his black mother.
26* HidingYourHeritage:
27** Jefferson is a mixed-race man passing as white.
28** Eve is light-skinned and, as a result, Hugh didn't know she was black. He doesn't learn until the end of the film.
29* HollywoodDarkness: It's light out at midnight when Hugh goes riding back to save Eve--which is weird, since it's pitch-black at the same time that the Klansmen are riding. (The Klansmen have flares.)
30* TheKlan: Barr and Tugi enlist the Ku Klux Klan to drive Eve off her land.
31* MilkingTheGiantCow: Jefferson does this in the normal way after throttling his mother, following his breakup with the white girl.
32* PassFail:
33** Jefferson passes as white, but his lover finally learns his heritage upon accidentally meeting his mother.
34** Jefferson notices that Eve is black because her ''eyes'' "betray her origins".
35* RaceFilm: ''The Symbol of the Unconquered'' is one of the oldest remaining race films.
36* ASaintNamedMary: August's wife Mary is described as an innocent victim of DomesticAbuse.

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