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D. W. Griffith's Film Birth Of A Nation

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The revival of the Ku Klux Klan began in 1910’s, which striked great controversy all over the nation. Conveniently D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation based on Thomas Dixon’s novel the Clansman was released stirring great controversy all over the nation as well. Many people have believed that there is a connection between the release of Birth of a Nation and The Clansman due to the fact that the Klan first successfully revived after the release of Birth of a Nation. "The Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly from there and had more than two million members throughout the country by the mid-1920s. D.W. Griffith's film Birth of a Nation, which glorified the Klan and denigrated blacks, was used as a recruiting tool” (PBS Rise and Fall of Jim Crow; Ku Klux …show more content…

Birth of a Nation lacked any African American actors in the film itself. They were portrayed using “blackface”, which is when an actor paints their face black, and pretends to play an African American. “This film actually depicts lynching as a positive thing,” she says. “The politics of the film was essentially to say certain black people are worthy of being lynched. In that sense it’s extremely racist” (Brooks, Tom). Birth of a Nation’s portrayal of lynching, though not shown on screen, was still a big deal. Lynching was synonomous with the Klan who would lynch “carpetbaggers” and African …show more content…

Simmons. In addition to being anti-black, the new Klan was anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant, and by the early 1920s it had spread throughout the North as well as the South. At the peak of its strength in 1924, membership in the KKK is estimated to have been as high as three million” (History.com Staff).
The great success of the Klan was strengthened by the fact that the Klan was also prominent in the North. Because of this prominence the message of the Klan reached a wider audience, and was able to gain more supporters than it originally had. The Klan originated and stayed in the South, while the revived

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The 1920s, and all of the events that accompanied it, provoked the KKK to rise up once again. This revitalized Klan is often referred to as the second wave of the Klan.5 It was established in 1915 by William J. Simmons. Simmons, a minister, claimed that he had been given a vision by God. In this vision, God told him to gather white, native-born Protestant men in battle against forces of evil and immorality that were consuming the nation.6 So, Simmons gathered 33 men, climbed to the top of Stone Mountain in Georgia, and set a cross on fire, signifying the beginning of a movement.7 While the first Klan had just been a phenomenon, the 1920s Klan was a legitimate organization, with over 6 million members joining in between 1920 and

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Micheaux created “race” films which consisted of an all-black cast for black audiences. Micheaux’s films were a reaction, and a necessity, to what was then a segregated Hollywood industry and a segregated society. Micheaux attempted to challenge ideas portrayed in other films including white supremacy.4 Micheaux’s second film Within Our Gates (1920), was his response to D.W Griffith’s Birth Of a Nation (1915).5 Birth Of a Nation promoted Anti-African American ideas with its emphasis on the Ku Klux Klan. In Birth Of a Nation, a false version of the South after the Civil War was portrayed in which blacks were presented as dominating Southern whites (almost all of whom are noble in the film) because of their strong presence in the South during the Reconstruction era.6

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For instance, the 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation," which had a significant influence on Civil War films in later decades, portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as a noble and heroic organization, effectively rewriting history to show white southerners as the victims of Reconstruction rather than the perpetrators of oppression and violence. The Ku Klux Klan was praised in the movie as a vital force for maintaining law and order and defending white supremacy, while African Americans were portrayed as lazy, dangerous, and shiftless. The movie successfully reshaped history by making white southerners Reconstruction's victims rather than the oppressors and violent offenders. One could argue that, in terms of different interpretations, Civil War films from the 1950s and 1960s "went South" as opposed to "went West." This viewpoint highlights how important southern identity and experience are in many of these movies.

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The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex.

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Within the documentary, a segment focused on the critically acclaimed motion picture, Birth of a Nation. The motion picture was not only a major blockbuster, but according to it also confirmed the beliefs of “White America” wanted to see. The movie depicted blacks in a lewd and terrible manner. The white political elite needed black bodies working, and the Birth of a Nation provided with cause to make blacks criminals. By being deemed criminals, whatever human rights a black person had, were automatically taken away.

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Through white supremacy, the Klu Klux Klan was born. During the 1920s, cultural conflict and modernization helped resuscitate the Ku Klux Klan. Whereas the original KKK was a violent, racist organization born in the post-Civil War South, the modern Klan was driven by somewhat different concerns. Many white, lower-middle-class, Protestant Americans in the North and Midwest were fearful that immigrants were changing traditional American

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Founded during the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), The Ku Klux Klan was an extremist hate group that violently challenged social and political laws which protected certain minority groups. The Klan’s deliberate use of terror and violence reflected the passion held for a racial hierarchy, with whites at the top of the social structure. The presence of KKK was seen not only during the Reconstruction Era, but also during the post–World War I era (1920s). There are distinct similarities and differences that define the motives of the 1860s Klan and the reincarnated 1920s Klan; however, I believe these characteristics hide the true representation of the intolerance of American citizens.

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The Ku Klux Klan was alive and strong during World War I reconstruction but during this era they disbanded. Almost 50 years later, after seeing a film called “Birth of A Nation”, Colonel William Joseph Simmons rejuvinized the Klan. For Simmons first act as new Klan leader he climbed to the top of a mountain and set fire to a cross to mark the rebirth of the KKK. Simmons acts as new Klan leader led the supremacist to nationwide membership of possibly up to 8 million. Membership of the Klan was not limited to just the poor or the South either.

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The swift pace of change during the era incited a repercussion amidst those left behind by modernity like the farmers that received no economic gains from the new industry, traditional moralists angry about flappers and speakeasies, Christian fundamentalists annoyed by Darwinian objection to the literal word of the bible, nativists overrun by immigrants. All these disagreements made conflict between tradition and modernity. A failed doctor named William J. Simmons coordinated a new Klan in Atlanta, declaring it to the world by a great fiery cross up on Stone Mountain. Simmons new KKK spread around America in the era, enhancing the most critical agent for a traditional politics that was not just anti-black but also anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Communist, anti-alcohol, anti-immigration, anti-sex, and anti-science. ”In 1921, Congress, at the urging of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan...

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On the other hand due to the fact that the movie had such a "whites come together feel" in it, it became the first movie to be played in the White House. What is meant by having an "whites come together feel" is that whites had so much hatred and fear towards African-Americans that they were able to put aside their own standing feud to band together and defeat African- Americans. This is unbelievable and not at the same time for the reason that yes the north and south had different views and values at the time but if African-Americans are trying to endanger any whites, the whites would always band together to protect their own. This is what made it easy for Griffith to make the Ku Klux Klan the heroes in the movie due to the fact they had a common enemy. It displayed the Klan and whites in an uplifting light.

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The emergence of the Afro American cinema consequently leans on the controversy of Griffith’s movie. The Afro American filmmakers want to create their own studios, they want to be independent from Hollywood. “On one hand, they felt the need to screen a positive image of the Black Man, an image damaged by the stereotypes from the early movies. On the other hand, they want to touch and satisfy the Black public, an abandoned public”. (Crari, 2011, p55).

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This film was not just praised for its cinematic brilliance but was critiqued for its extreme racist theme and for the portrayal of black stereotypical characteristics. Griffith refused that his intent was to be racist and declared it as art. Griffith’s film was promoting pure propaganda and hate, it was written to play on every fear that the ignorant Whites could have about blacks in the US. Unfortunately, the effect of the film was so profound that it served to reinforce negative stereotypes that persist to this day. Griffith depicted slaves as immoral, lazy, unintelligent and overly sexualized.

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Since I was a little girl first reciting my alphabet and numbers, I have possessed a love of learning. That overwhelming desire to learn and become a well-rounded person has stayed over the years, driving me to push myself and continually strive to improve and accomplish all I set out to. My devotion to learning has caused me to be a creative person who thinks outside the box and appreciates the perspectives of others. My thirst for knowledge has been cultivated over time by caring and supportive teachers, who have inspired me to enter into the educational field and foster that same desire to learn in my own classroom. I hope to become the type of teacher I have always looked to for guidance; one who is dedicated, creative, understanding, and

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The final character is the Ku Klux Klan in Birth of a Nation is shown, as a hero if it’s not Ku Klux Klan America would be in ruins. Ku Klux Klan is there to protect the pure white race from the blacks. Griffith depicts his Klansmen committing horrendous acts against blacks; he clearly regards these crimes as justified and means the audience to feel likewise. This can be seen by a scene where a trial and lynching of a black man whose frighten a white woman that led to her death, and the reversing of election fraud attributed earlier in the film to black militia seen blocking leading white citizens from approaching the polls, with subjugated blacks now barred by Klan guardsmen; fear and the need to do something drove a lot of people to become

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This stance Griffith had taken only furthers the stereotype created on film. The idea that Griffith did not realize he was creating a highly racist film signifies the attitude of society at the time. It points to the idea that much of the American culture, at the time, was passively racist. They views that society had come to accept as reality, was not reality at all. The black depiction, as seen in The Birth of a Nation, continued for several years until Hollywood film reached another turning

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