This Day in Black History: Aug. 8, 1986

Director Spike Lee’s first feature-length film, She’s Gotta Have It, premiered in theaters on Aug. 8, 1986. 

She’s Gotta Have It is a comedy about Nola Darling, a free-spirited African-American woman in Brooklyn, New York, and her three suitors. Lee makes an appearance in the film as one of those suitors, a bike messenger named Mars Blackmon.

Some of Lee’s other notable works include Do the Right Thing and School Daze, his second and third feature-length films. Do the Right Thing won him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. His production company 40 Acres and a Mule has produced dozens of films — several of them dubbed “Spike Lee joints” — since the ’80s.

In March 2014, Lee announced that Showtime would be developing She’s Gotta Have It into a series for the cable network.