The First Kiss We Were Never Meant to See

A rediscovered film from 1898 dares to

Before Beyoncé, before Baldwin, before we could even dream of a world where Black love could exist unapologetically in media, there was Something Good – Negro Kiss.

Captured in 1898 and buried by time, this 49-second silent film—once considered lost—features a Black couple holding hands, flirting, and exchanging kisses with palpable joy. It’s not a parody. Not a performance of pain. Just two people, laughing between smooches, their chemistry so rich you can almost hear them giggle.

And yet, this film wasn’t meant to survive.

'Something Good – Negro Kiss' 1898. Image: The National Library of Norway. courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts.

At the turn of the century, Black bodies on screen were reduced to grotesque caricatures, minstrel mockery, or erased altogether. But here, Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown, both vaudeville performers, lean in with softness and spark, unafraid to claim a moment of connection. Their joy is deliberate. Radical. Unscripted in a time where scripts were designed to silence people like them.

That this film was found at all—once in an estate sale in Louisiana in 2017 and again in a dusty Norwegian barn in 2021—isn’t just luck. It’s legacy clawing its way back through the noise. It’s history refusing to be sanitized.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about nostalgia or cinematic heritage. This is about the subversive power of tenderness, especially when embodied by those who were never meant to be seen as tender. Black love—unfiltered, unperformative, and freely expressed—has always been a threat to white supremacy’s gaze. And yet here it is, pre-dating even the idea that we could ever be seen as more than background.

'Something Good – Negro Kiss' 1898. Image: The National Library of Norway. courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts.

We’re told too often that our stories of pleasure, sensuality, and vulnerability are modern phenomena. Something Good dares to tell another story. One that says: we have always loved one another like this.

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'Something Good – Negro Kiss' 1898. Image: The National Library of Norway. courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts.

At A Woman, we honor these rediscoveries not as dusty footnotes but as vital chapters in the long, complicated, and fierce story of womanhood—especially for Black women. This kiss matters because it was never supposed to. And it matters still because it reminds us that even in 1898, there were people who refused to let the world define their intimacy.

So here’s to the soft moments that survived the fire.

Here’s to the kisses that defied erasure.

Here’s to something good—and the women bold enough to claim it.

Watch the restored version of Something Good – Negro Kiss here.