I own a VHS player, so when I eventually got home, I immediately inserted the cassette and played it, and thankfully, it worked – at least, initially. But more on that later.
By the way, the cassette itself didn’t have a director’s name on it, which I would eventually find out on my own, via my smart phone, at the site of purchase: Roland Gall. A name I wasn’t at all familiar with, and, sadly, online research returned little. He is listed on IMDB, with director credits starting in 1967 and ending in 1986. I couldn’t even determine whether he’s alive or dead. Although a more extensive search will probably answer that question.
According to his IMDB page, Gall directed primarily for German TV, with How I Became A Negro his only theatrical release. My research tells me that it was released in 1971, in what was then West Germany, and screened in the USA (in New York specifically) a year later, in 1972.
I also couldn’t find very much on the film itself, sadly, aside from variations of the story it tells:
A young professor under Hitler who is attacked by parents and students for his liberal views, who leaves for Africa to start a new life in a mission school. Now himself an outcast – a “Negro” – he joins his fellow Negroes.