“Birth of a Nation” Denied Permit in New York City
New York City officials on this day yielded to protests from the NAACP and other civil rights activists and denied permit to D. W. Griffith’s famous and controversial film Birth of a Nation.
Birth of a Nation is one of the most important and controversial films in American movie history. It is important in the development of film as an art form because of its many innovations in cinematography and narrative storytelling techniques. The film was and still is controversial because it embraced the racist view of the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, portraying African-Americans as savages and fools, while presenting the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.
In the 1920s, screenings of Birth of a Nation played some role in the rebirth of the KKK (often referred to as the “Second Klan), which was stronger in the North and West than in the South. (Read Linda Gordon’s great book on the Klan in the Twenties [see below]).
The film was protested by civil rights activists when it opened in New York City on March 3, 1915, but it was not banned at that time.
Efforts to ban Birth of a Nation continued for decades. It was also the first motion picture ever viewed by President Woodrow Wilson, in a special screening at the White House on February 18, 1915. The racist interpretation of Reconstruction was consistent with his own views, which were reflected in his writings on American history.
Read: Melvyn Stokes, The Birth of a Nation: A History of The Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time (2007)
See Birth of a Nation on DVD. The Kino edition (2002) includes documents on attempts to censor the movie from the 1920s to the 1930s.
Learn more about the film: http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html
Read the great new book about the KKK in the 1920s: Linda Gordon, The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition (2017)
Read the novel on which the film is based: Thomas Dixon, The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here