The Realization of a Negro’s Ambition

(1916)

2 reels

Black Cast / Documentary / Drama / Silent

Directed by Harry A. Gant

Cast: Noble Johnson, Bessie Baker, Lottie Boles, A. Collins, Clarence Brooks, A. Burns, Beulah Hall, Webb King, Bessie Mathews, Gertrude Christmas and G.H. Reed
 
James Burton, is a Tuskegee graduate who leaves his father's farm and his girlfriend. Burton's departure allows him to seek his fortune out West on the California oil fields. When he arrives in California, Burton is denied an oil drilling job because he is black. This is the major conflict in the film, but Burton surmounts it by saving the life of a wealthy white oilman's daughter. The father rewards him with a job. Later, the owner discovers that Burton has a degree in civil engineering and makes Burton the head of an oil expedition. Through a series of discoveries, Burton realizes that the geological features of his father's farm resemble those of the California oil fields. He returns home, becomes wealthy through his discovery of oil on family land, and weds his hometown sweetheart.