The film chronicles the rise and fall of a fictionalized charismatic leader of a back-to-Africa movement, modeled on the life of Marcus Garvey.

[4] The Black King chronicles the rise and fall of a fictionalized charismatic leader of a back-to-Africa movement, satirizing the life of Marcus Garvey.

[4] The Black King was written as a stage play by Donald Heywood and plans were publicly announced to produce it on Broadway directed by Russian choreographer Léonide Massine.

Instead, Heywood's story was adapted by Morris M. Levinson and it was produced as a film by Southland Pictures under white director Bud Pollard in 1932.

[5] Daniel J. Leab, a 1975 commentator, rates it well as entertainment, saying it has "a more carefully plotted storyline than most other black genre films of its time".