According to Thomas Cripps, in his book “Slow Fade To Black: The Negro In American Film 1900-1942,” Hearts In Dixie is almost the equal of the much better known classic by King Vidor, Hallelujah as “an artful, humane depiction of black Southern life and its spoilage by urbanization.” Cripps notes: “Thus, although the surface data seemed to exemplify Southern white norms of racial segregation, the superiority of white science over black folk wisdom, and the justified place that blacks held on the bottom rung of life, the film still clearly deviated from old ways. Clarence Muse, the best evidence, gave Nappus a quiet patriarchal dignity - floridly so at times - which emerged from his inner values rather than from an Uncle Remus's conventional native wit.”

Originally begun as a two-reeler, Hearts In Dixie smoothly expanded to feature length. According to Cripps: “The critical reception for Hearts In Dixie was overwhelming. The toughest black writers, those with knee-jerk hostile reactions to any white production, cast off reserve and praised it.”