Much of silent film’s history is lost forever to the ages, victims of public apathy, flammable film stock, or one of a million other variables that can make a film vanish entirely. Every once in a while, however, a seemingly lost film is discovered and an invaluable piece of cinematic history is restored. That seems to be the case with seven reels of film from 1913 that have lingered in the archives of the Museum Of Modern Art for decades, which were recently revealed to be what MOMA curators believe to be the earliest recorded footage of a feature film with a black cast, according to a recent article in The New York Times.

According to the Times, the footage is remarkable for other reasons as well. The footage reveals the film to be a vehicle for Bert Williams, one of the biggest black Broadway stars of the day. The film cast Williams as a man competing with two other suitors for the hand of an upscale lady, and would have offered a rare and revelatory look at middle-class and upper-middle-class life at a time when racist, stereotypical images of black people were the norm. The reels also include behind-the-scenes footage of the uncompleted film being made, as well as a setpiece where the cast performs a “Cakewalk” that the article calls “the longest early record of black vernacular dance on film.”

It speaks to the complexities of race and racial representations of the day that Williams performed the role in blackface, which was not uncommon even for black stars of the day; part of the footage includes shots of Williams’ blackface makeup being applied. The footage also reveals the film to be an interracial production, with two white directors and one black one. It’s not known why the footage was never transformed into a finished film, but the article suggests the popularity of D.W Griffith’s deeply racist Birth Of A Nation might have hurt the commercial chances for a film about black life starring actual African-Americans.

The restored footage will form the centerpiece of MoMA’s exhibit “100 Years in Post-Production: Resurrecting a Lost Landmark of Black Film History,” set to open October 24, while a full hour of the footage will be shown on November 8 as part of the museum’s “To Save and Project” festival. It’s unfortunate that the film was never completed at the time of its release and that everyone involved in its making is long dead, but it is exciting that this lost piece of African-American and silent-film history will be resurrected for posterity. The two still images and 30-second glimpse of The Cakewalk sequence included in The New York Times article give a sense of what an exciting and important discovery this really is.