A new exhibit opening Thursday at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at UNC will explore the history of black film through posters and other memorabilia.

"Black Dreams and Silver Screens: Black Film Posters, 1921-2004," will be on display through Dec. 5. It will feature more than 65 original posters, rare vintage lobby cards and one-of-a-kind materials from the earliest days of black filmmaking, and from classic films with all-black casts.

Henry T. Sampson, the author of "Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films," will speak Thursday at 12:15 p.m. in the center's Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum, where the exhibit will be displayed. Lunch will be provided.

A U.S. Postal Service representative will make a presentation at an opening reception Thursday at 7 p.m. in the gallery and museum. In July, the postal service released a collection of movie poster stamps based on vintage black cinema.

The exhibit, talk and reception will be free to the public. The exhibit will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and by appointment at the center, just west of the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower off South Road.

Sampson will discuss the rise and fall of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. Established and financed by black Americans in 1915, Lincoln was the first motion picture company in the United States to produce and distribute feature-length films reflecting the lives of middle-class blacks.

Items in the exhibit are on loan from the collection of brother and sister Alden Kimbrough and Mary Kimbrough of Los Angeles, who will attend the reception.

The posters highlight the work of the first black matinee idols, including Herb Jeffries, Lena Horne and Bill Pickett. Besides their use as promotional material, the posters played an important social and cultural role for black communities across the country by showing black actors most often as legitimate screen stars and cultural icons.