Are you having a hard time convincing friends and associates that black cinema has a rich and vivid history, that it isn't just filled with flicks like "Soul Plane" or "The Cookout" or "Bebe's Kids" or anything that stars Mo'Nique?

Thankfully, a venue at UNC-Chapel Hill is coming to the aid of those who need to teach their cynical colleagues some big-screen black history.

Beginning today, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History is hosting an exhibit titled "Black Dreams and Silver Screens: Black Film Posters, 1921-2004," which will run through Dec. 5. The exhibit, in the center's Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum, features 60 posters, lobby cards, publicity photos and other memorabilia documenting motion pictures made for and by, and/or starring African-Americans.

The exhibit breaks down the history of African-Americans on film chronologically, from the race movies of the 1930s and '40s to '70s black cinema often referred to as "blaxploitation," to the indie film renaissance of the '80s and '90s that had directors such as Spike Lee ("She's Gotta Have It"), Robert Townsend ("Hollywood Shuffle") and John Singleton ("Boyz N The Hood") doing their own thing.

Indeed, the posters are eye-catching, mostly the early 20th century finds, and not just for their pulpy, aggressively in-your-face titles (such as "Gang Smashers" and "Prison Bait") and boasts of featuring "an all-colored cast." They're also visually fascinating in their striking, solid artwork, especially the ones for films by pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, who died in 1951 in Charlotte on a business trip.

"I think that, more so in this era, these were seen as art than arguably what you find today," center director Joseph Jordan says. "So the time that was taken to do some of these, I mean, it tells a story. And you almost had to have that on the initial piece, because there was no Internet. There was no television. This visual was what was going to pull people in."

All of these pieces come from the 200 to 300-plus collection of Los Angeles-based siblings Alden and Mary Kimbrough, who previously lent material to the center for a Paul Robeson retrospective there in 2007.

"We had many more than we could put in the exhibit," Jordan says, referring to the other posters the Kimbroughs sent.

"Things like 'The Color Purple' I didn't put up. I didn't put up 'Malcolm X.' I didn't put up a lot of the newer stuff, [like] 'Drumline.' They have a lot of newer things that we just didn't have room for."

The center has gone all out for its opening day events. Along with the Kimbroughs, Henry T. Sampson, Ph.D., author of "Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films," will also come in from L.A. and lecture on black film history at noon. A U.S. Postal Service representative will make a presentation at the 7 p.m. opening reception, showing off the new "Vintage Black Cinema" movie poster stamps that debuted in July.

Throughout the exhibit, a flat-screen wall monitor will show four films whose posters are being showcased.

Of course, the intent of the exhibition is to hip spectators to the actors and filmmakers who have made their mark on celluloid throughout the decades. Jordan says he has certainly found himself enlightened by the collection.

"You and I, who know about this, can still be surprised by the level of sophistication that black filmmakers have shown, going back to the very beginning," he says.

"I think it's always new for me, regardless of how much I study, regardless of how much I know. And I think that's what people will see: that there's a resilience, there's entrepreneurship, but there's also social responsibility sort of wound up in all of that.

"It is not simply a monetary reward that they seek. There's always some sensibility about the community that they serve, and the community that they depict -- except for 'Bebe's Kids' and other things like that."

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