Supported by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage as part of America 250
In collaboration with the Black Film Center & Archive at Indiana University and the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School

In celebration of America 250 and the centennial of The Flying Ace, ReelAbilities International, with the support of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, has launched a special collaborative project to bring this landmark 1926 all-Black silent film back into public conversation. In collaboration with the Black Film Center & Archive at Indiana University and the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School, the project reintroduces The Flying Ace through the intersecting lenses of Black film history, disability culture, archival preservation, live music, accessibility, and public dialogue. More than a celebration of an important film from the past, the project explores how new perspectives, artistic interpretation, and access can deepen our understanding of cultural history and transform the way audiences experience it today.

Conceived and developed for ReelAbilities by Carter-Long, the project brings together BFCA’s archival and Black film expertise, FMDG’s music-centered approach, Smithsonian Folklife’s America 250 support, and ReelAbilities’ disability-culture and access framework.

The Black Film Center & Archive brings essential expertise in Black film history, preservation, scholarship, and archival context. The connection is especially fitting because BFCA holds the Richard E. Norman and Race Filmmaking Collection, a major collection of studio records, production stills, publicity artifacts, and screening history connected to Norman Studios, the company behind The Flying Ace. ReelAbilities International brings a disability-led cultural and access framework. FMDG brings a music-centered perspective to the presentation of silent film and the live audience experience. Together, the collaborators are creating an encounter no single organization could produce alone.

At its heart, the program makes a clear argument: film history is American history. Black history is American history. Disability history is American history. Music history is American history. The Flying Ace brings these histories together.

In its centennial year, and as the United States marks America 250, this project invites audiences to reconsider how American stories are preserved, whose perspectives shape cultural history, and what becomes possible when we encounter the past through a broader frame.

First released in 1926, The Flying Ace is a landmark silent feature with an all-Black cast. Produced during the race-film era, the film is an aviation mystery centered on Captain Billy Stokes, a Black World War I pilot and railroad detective, and featuring Steve “Peg” Reynolds, an amputee actor and stunt performer whose physical skill, comedy, and action work make disability part of the film’s cinematic energy.

A century later, The Flying Ace offers a strong story for film reviewers, disability studies scholars, Black film historians, archivists, music writers, pop culture critics, and curious audiences interested in what American film history has preserved, what it has overlooked, and what becomes possible when older work is approached with new perspective.

For film reviewers, The Flying Ace offers a chance to revisit silent cinema, race films, genre storytelling, aviation, masculinity, action, disability, and heroism. For disability studies scholars, Steve “Peg” Reynolds’s performance opens a rich conversation about disabled embodiment, stunt work, comedy, and physical spectacle in early cinema. For Black film historians and archivists, the film invites renewed attention to the fragility and force of early Black independent cinema. For pop culture writers, it offers a compelling hook: a 1926 all-Black aviation mystery from the race-film era, featuring an amputee performer whose crutch work, bicycle chase, and physical comedy make disability part of the action rather than a side note.

For a silent film, music is not background. It is part of the storytelling itself, shaping rhythm, emotion, tension, humor, and atmosphere. It is how the story moves, breathes, and reaches its audience.

For The Flying Ace, GRAMMY Award-winning musician Matthew Whitaker and composer and musician Robert Derke are creating a new, partially improvised live score that responds to the film in real time. Rather than simply recreating the musical experience of 1926, the score brings a contemporary artistic voice into conversation with the film, allowing its images, characters, action, and energy to be experienced anew.

The result is a live encounter between past and present. As the film unfolds on screen, Whitaker and Derke create a musical language that connects the world of The Flying Ace to the room, the audience, and the moment of performance. Their improvisational approach leaves space for discovery, making each presentation a living interpretation rather than a fixed soundtrack.

Matthew Whitaker is a GRAMMY Award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and bandleader whose work bridges jazz, film, television, and contemporary performance. Blind since birth, Whitaker has built an international career as a musician and advocate for greater access to music and the arts, collaborating with artists and ensembles including Jon Batiste, Christian McBride, Regina Carter, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. His work across film and television includes starring in, producing, and scoring the Emmy-nominated documentary About Tomorrow, as well as composing for film and contributing to award-winning projects. A graduate of The Juilliard School and a passionate music educator and accessibility advocate, Whitaker brings to The Flying Ace a distinctive understanding of how music, improvisation, disability, and access can shape the way audiences experience a film. 

Rob Derke, Executive Director of the FMDG School, is a Brooklyn-born saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator whose career spans jazz performance, composition, film and television scoring, and arts education. Hailed by JazzTimes as “among the best soprano saxophonists today,” Derke has performed at leading venues and festivals across the United States and internationally, developing an expressive and highly improvisational musical voice shaped by working alongside many of the masters of jazz. His compositions and performances draw on his extensive global experience and deep commitment to creative collaboration, while his work as an educator and scholar-practitioner focuses on building new approaches to arts learning and leadership. For The Flying Ace, Derke brings this breadth of musical experience and improvisational practice to the creation and performance of a new, partially improvised live score with GRAMMY Award-winning musician Matthew Whitaker, helping connect the film's 1926 world with contemporary audiences through music.

Accessibility and inclusion are embedded in every layer of The Flying Ace project. Access is not being added to the presentation after the fact; it is part of how the experience is being conceived, created, and shared.

Remarkably, the film itself offers an authentic and nuanced portrayal of disability that feels strikingly ahead of its time: through the performance of amputee actor and stunt performer Steve “Peg” Reynolds, disability is not presented simply as a limitation or a plot device, but as part of a complex, active, and often unexpected character and cinematic experience.

For the centennial presentation, ReelAbilities has commissioned a new audio description of the film, narrated by blind voice-over artist Thomas Reid, creating another layer of interpretation and access. Live captioning and Sign Language interpretation will accompany public screenings and conversations, ensuring that access is integrated throughout the experience.
When accessibility becomes part of the creative process rather than an accommodation added at the end, it can deepen how everyone encounters, understands, and connects with the work.