Ebony Film Corporation
Ebony Film Corporation Soundex Code E150
The Ebony Film Corporation was a Chicago-based, white-owned company with only one black employee--Luther J. Pollard.
Luther J. Pollard was often described as a "colored front man" for a exploitative white-controlled company. But, he was also cited as Ebony's most visible creative force and a strong advocate for positive Black images and in a letter to George P. Johnson, booking manager of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, he said that nearly all of the production companies owned entirely by colored people have specialized in the production of dramas" to respond to the routinely degrading treatment of Blacks in comedy films. Pollard expressed his pride in Ebony comedies because they "proved to the public that colored players can put over good comedy with out any of that crap shooting, chicken stealing, razor display, water melon eating stuff that the colored people generally have been a little disgusted in seeing. He said, "You do not find that stuff in Ebony comedies.
