"Independent Lens" Birth of a Movement

1 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:12,074 Support us and become VIP member to remove all ads from www.OpenSubtitles.org 2 00:00:14,428 --> 00:00:19,467 Narrator: Los Angeles, February 8, 1915. 3 00:00:19,502 --> 00:00:23,333 3,000 people crowd into Clunes Auditorium 4 00:00:23,368 --> 00:00:26,923 to watch a motion picture being promoted 5 00:00:26,957 --> 00:00:29,857 as the greatest ever produced. 6 00:00:31,824 --> 00:00:34,068 [Orchestra warming up] 7 00:00:34,103 --> 00:00:35,966 [Conductor's baton taps] 8 00:00:36,001 --> 00:00:38,693 [Orchestral music playing] 9 00:01:04,374 --> 00:01:07,067 Narrator: Within weeks, it will be the first movie 10 00:01:07,101 --> 00:01:09,517 to be shown inside the White House 11 00:01:09,552 --> 00:01:12,037 under its new name, 12 00:01:12,072 --> 00:01:14,902 "The Birth of a Nation." 13 00:01:14,936 --> 00:01:17,284 Vincent Brown: Cinema is so important 14 00:01:17,318 --> 00:01:18,526 to American popular culture, 15 00:01:18,561 --> 00:01:20,735 the grand spectacle. 16 00:01:20,770 --> 00:01:23,290 And this is where people go to see 17 00:01:23,324 --> 00:01:25,740 their fears and fantasies realized. 18 00:01:25,775 --> 00:01:28,847 It's also where they go to learn history. 19 00:01:34,922 --> 00:01:37,235 It's probably the single-most important medium 20 00:01:37,269 --> 00:01:38,719 in American popular culture, 21 00:01:38,753 --> 00:01:40,824 and D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" 22 00:01:40,859 --> 00:01:43,862 was the single-most important American film in early cinema. 23 00:01:47,417 --> 00:01:50,248 Brown: But the film is about history, writ large. 24 00:01:50,282 --> 00:01:52,491 It's about the Civil War 25 00:01:52,526 --> 00:01:54,597 and Reconstruction and the nation, 26 00:01:54,631 --> 00:01:56,702 the birth of a nation. 27 00:01:58,566 --> 00:02:00,982 It just so happens that the American nation 28 00:02:01,017 --> 00:02:04,607 has to be born out of white supremacy. 29 00:02:04,641 --> 00:02:07,679 William Jelani Cobb: "Birth of a Nation" has the flaws 30 00:02:07,713 --> 00:02:09,646 of being terribly racist, 31 00:02:09,681 --> 00:02:11,924 of being historically inaccurate, 32 00:02:11,959 --> 00:02:14,203 propagandistic in a way that jeopardized the lives 33 00:02:14,237 --> 00:02:17,965 of black people, but it was also the most pure, 34 00:02:17,999 --> 00:02:20,485 honest, unfiltered distillation 35 00:02:20,519 --> 00:02:22,832 of white racial thought at that time. 36 00:02:55,244 --> 00:02:58,454 Dick Lehr: I got interested in the story when I was reading 37 00:02:58,488 --> 00:03:01,042 about William Monroe Trotter, 38 00:03:01,077 --> 00:03:03,217 a radical newspaper editor, 39 00:03:03,252 --> 00:03:06,289 a civil rights leader here in Boston, Massachusetts. 40 00:03:06,324 --> 00:03:08,912 And I didn't know very much about him, and I felt like, 41 00:03:08,947 --> 00:03:12,433 "Huh, I should. I'm based in Boston, I'm a journalist, 42 00:03:12,468 --> 00:03:15,125 "I'm interested in civil rights, and here's this guy 43 00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:16,782 "who was part of all of that 44 00:03:16,817 --> 00:03:19,337 in the early 1900s." 45 00:03:19,371 --> 00:03:22,029 And I came upon his protest 46 00:03:22,063 --> 00:03:24,928 against America's first blockbuster film, 47 00:03:24,963 --> 00:03:26,413 "The Birth of a Nation." 48 00:03:26,447 --> 00:03:27,931 He was at the forefront of this 49 00:03:27,966 --> 00:03:29,933 amazing, intense, and dramatic 50 00:03:29,968 --> 00:03:31,935 battle against the movie 51 00:03:31,970 --> 00:03:34,973 that played out for more than 3 months in Boston, and that was 52 00:03:35,007 --> 00:03:38,632 my "aha" moment because I said, "This is the story to tell." 53 00:03:38,666 --> 00:03:39,909 Narrator: This story, 54 00:03:39,943 --> 00:03:41,462 overshadowed and nearly 55 00:03:41,497 --> 00:03:42,670 forgotten in the wake 56 00:03:42,705 --> 00:03:44,120 of World War I, pits 57 00:03:44,154 --> 00:03:46,122 the radical newspaper editor 58 00:03:46,156 --> 00:03:48,124 William Monroe Trotter 59 00:03:48,158 --> 00:03:50,264 against D.W. Griffith, 60 00:03:50,299 --> 00:03:53,785 father of Hollywood cinema. 61 00:03:53,819 --> 00:03:56,408 In the spring of 1915, 62 00:03:56,443 --> 00:03:58,583 these passionate, driven, 63 00:03:58,617 --> 00:04:00,757 and flawed men reignited 64 00:04:00,792 --> 00:04:02,759 the tensions of the Civil War 65 00:04:02,794 --> 00:04:04,761 and the battle over race 66 00:04:04,796 --> 00:04:07,281 that will culminate in a showdown 67 00:04:07,316 --> 00:04:09,283 on the streets of Boston. 68 00:04:09,318 --> 00:04:12,700 Man: Are you ready? Are you ready? 69 00:04:12,735 --> 00:04:15,841 Are you going to demand they give you a ticket to that? 70 00:04:15,876 --> 00:04:20,156 We are going to demand to see "The Birth of a Nation." 71 00:04:22,158 --> 00:04:26,887 Dolita Cathcart: Boston is really the birthplace of freedom. 72 00:04:26,921 --> 00:04:30,131 African-Americans have been fighting for their rights 73 00:04:30,166 --> 00:04:32,513 since the 1600s. 74 00:04:32,548 --> 00:04:34,688 This history of abolitionism, 75 00:04:34,722 --> 00:04:36,552 radical abolitionism, 76 00:04:36,586 --> 00:04:39,865 the continuing struggle against the rising tide 77 00:04:39,900 --> 00:04:42,351 of the Klan in the South, 78 00:04:42,385 --> 00:04:45,802 most of this was coming out of Boston. 79 00:04:45,837 --> 00:04:48,805 In that regard, Boston was a magnet 80 00:04:48,840 --> 00:04:52,326 for skilled workers, skilled African-American workers. 81 00:04:52,361 --> 00:04:56,330 It was a magnet for those who were themselves activists 82 00:04:56,365 --> 00:04:59,920 in their hometowns, but fearing, of course, the noose. 83 00:05:01,370 --> 00:05:05,339 Narrator: William Monroe Trotter was born in 1872. 84 00:05:05,374 --> 00:05:07,652 Both of his parents were the offspring 85 00:05:07,686 --> 00:05:12,553 of white slave masters and their black slave mistresses. 86 00:05:13,830 --> 00:05:15,867 In the 1850s, 87 00:05:15,901 --> 00:05:17,731 Trotter's parents fled the South 88 00:05:17,765 --> 00:05:19,836 for Ohio, a free state 89 00:05:19,871 --> 00:05:22,977 and common destination for former slaves. 90 00:05:23,012 --> 00:05:25,463 With the outbreak of the Civil War, 91 00:05:25,497 --> 00:05:29,398 Trotter's father James moved to abolitionist Boston 92 00:05:29,432 --> 00:05:32,711 to join an all-black regiment fighting for the North. 93 00:05:32,746 --> 00:05:34,679 Cathcart: When the war comes to an end, 94 00:05:34,713 --> 00:05:37,198 his service, the fact that he becomes an officer, 95 00:05:37,233 --> 00:05:40,063 that he knows many of the white abolitionists, 96 00:05:40,098 --> 00:05:42,997 helps him move from having been a teacher in Ohio 97 00:05:43,032 --> 00:05:45,310 to essentially becoming a real estate magnate 98 00:05:45,345 --> 00:05:47,726 in Boston, and becomes quite wealthy. 99 00:05:47,761 --> 00:05:51,247 Narrator: James Trotter set a high bar for his son Monroe. 100 00:05:51,281 --> 00:05:53,801 He taught him to suffer no insult 101 00:05:53,836 --> 00:05:56,666 and to take pride in his family's origins. 102 00:05:56,701 --> 00:05:59,255 Cathcart: One way that James Trotter looms in the mind 103 00:05:59,289 --> 00:06:01,671 of his son was around this idea 104 00:06:01,706 --> 00:06:04,674 of really being the best that one can be. 105 00:06:04,709 --> 00:06:07,643 And as a result, William Monroe Trotter-- 106 00:06:07,677 --> 00:06:10,404 in an all-white neighborhood, an all-white school--ends up 107 00:06:10,439 --> 00:06:12,544 being the valedictorian of the school, 108 00:06:12,579 --> 00:06:14,408 is also elected class president, 109 00:06:14,443 --> 00:06:17,894 and then manages to go off to Harvard. 110 00:06:17,929 --> 00:06:19,965 There weren't too many African-Americans 111 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:22,451 getting into Harvard in those days. 112 00:06:22,485 --> 00:06:25,454 Narrator: One of his few fellow black students at Harvard 113 00:06:25,488 --> 00:06:27,490 was W.E.B. Du Bois, 114 00:06:27,525 --> 00:06:30,148 destined to become one of the most famous men 115 00:06:30,182 --> 00:06:31,667 of the 20th century. 116 00:06:31,701 --> 00:06:34,324 W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. 117 00:06:34,359 --> 00:06:36,188 They were both men of the book 118 00:06:36,223 --> 00:06:38,087 who embraced the life of the mind. 119 00:06:38,121 --> 00:06:39,295 They were geniuses. 120 00:06:39,329 --> 00:06:40,986 Neither saw himself as an island. 121 00:06:41,021 --> 00:06:43,920 They really thought that... 122 00:06:43,955 --> 00:06:46,992 their fate depended on the collective rise 123 00:06:47,027 --> 00:06:49,512 of other African-Americans. 124 00:06:49,547 --> 00:06:51,894 Narrator: They navigate the Ivy League experience 125 00:06:51,928 --> 00:06:54,793 together, even falling for the same girl-- 126 00:06:54,828 --> 00:06:56,864 Deenie Pindell. 127 00:06:56,899 --> 00:06:59,522 Cathcart: Geraldine Louise Pindell came 128 00:06:59,557 --> 00:07:02,525 from a politicized family. 129 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:06,046 Both parents were light-skinned, as was generally the case 130 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:09,118 for elite and middle-class African-Americans in Boston. 131 00:07:09,152 --> 00:07:11,638 They tended to be of mixed heritage. 132 00:07:11,672 --> 00:07:14,710 Narrator: Deenie has known Monroe since childhood 133 00:07:14,744 --> 00:07:18,610 and is drawn to his fire and intellect. 134 00:07:18,645 --> 00:07:21,130 Cathcart: He was the first African-American at Harvard 135 00:07:21,164 --> 00:07:22,614 to get a Phi Beta Kappa key. 136 00:07:22,649 --> 00:07:24,547 He graduated magna cum laude, 137 00:07:24,582 --> 00:07:28,068 with a Master's degree, all in 4 years. 138 00:07:28,102 --> 00:07:31,174 He was someone that other students were drawn to. 139 00:07:31,209 --> 00:07:34,454 He had a power about him and understanding 140 00:07:34,488 --> 00:07:36,766 of the larger political situation, where maybe 141 00:07:36,801 --> 00:07:39,631 many of his other students did not have quite the same level 142 00:07:39,666 --> 00:07:41,150 of understanding. 143 00:07:41,184 --> 00:07:43,566 Man, as Trotter: Harvard was an inspiration to me 144 00:07:43,601 --> 00:07:47,121 because it was an exemplar of true Americanism-- 145 00:07:47,156 --> 00:07:49,607 freedom, equality, 146 00:07:49,641 --> 00:07:51,540 and real democracy. 147 00:07:51,574 --> 00:07:54,301 Each individual was taken on individual worth, 148 00:07:54,335 --> 00:07:57,131 their capability, and their ambition. 149 00:07:57,166 --> 00:07:59,306 [Church bell rings] 150 00:08:00,963 --> 00:08:01,929 Smoke, sir? 151 00:08:01,964 --> 00:08:04,484 Oh, thank you. 152 00:08:04,518 --> 00:08:05,864 Is that D.W. Griffith? 153 00:08:05,899 --> 00:08:07,038 Yes. 154 00:08:07,072 --> 00:08:08,488 He looks all right, doesn't he? 155 00:08:08,522 --> 00:08:09,834 Sure, he's all right. 156 00:08:09,868 --> 00:08:12,181 He made "The Birth of a Nation." 157 00:08:13,562 --> 00:08:16,530 Lehr: D.W. Griffith is a son of the South, 158 00:08:16,565 --> 00:08:19,602 born in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up in Kentucky. 159 00:08:19,637 --> 00:08:22,156 Interviewer: When you made "The Birth of a Nation," 160 00:08:22,191 --> 00:08:24,365 did you tell your father's story? 161 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:28,715 Well, uh, after you mention it, perhaps I did. 162 00:08:28,749 --> 00:08:31,372 Lehr: His father fought for the Confederacy 163 00:08:31,407 --> 00:08:33,892 in the Civil War-- "Roaring Jake" Griffith. 164 00:08:33,927 --> 00:08:36,688 He was a lieutenant colonel for the Wild Kentuckians. 165 00:08:36,723 --> 00:08:39,208 He had grown up, to that point, hearing his father 166 00:08:39,242 --> 00:08:41,313 tell stories about the Civil War 167 00:08:41,348 --> 00:08:44,593 and the old South in a very romanticized way. 168 00:08:44,627 --> 00:08:47,596 Oh, I suppose it began when I was a child. 169 00:08:47,630 --> 00:08:50,288 I used to get under the table and listen 170 00:08:50,322 --> 00:08:51,703 to my father and his friends talk 171 00:08:51,738 --> 00:08:53,153 about the battles they'd been through 172 00:08:53,187 --> 00:08:55,742 and their struggles and... 173 00:08:55,776 --> 00:08:58,089 Those things impressed you deeply. 174 00:08:58,123 --> 00:08:59,849 Now, I suppose that got into "The Birth." 175 00:08:59,884 --> 00:09:03,163 Ira Gallen: My obsession with Griffith over the last 40 years, 176 00:09:03,197 --> 00:09:06,269 I've been researching him ever since I was 19 years old, 177 00:09:06,304 --> 00:09:08,755 trying to piece together his life. 178 00:09:08,789 --> 00:09:11,930 The man created the art form of motion pictures, 179 00:09:11,965 --> 00:09:14,001 and nobody cares because they only want 180 00:09:14,036 --> 00:09:16,141 to remember him for one movie. 181 00:09:16,176 --> 00:09:19,317 Griffith is born 10 years after the Civil War. 182 00:09:19,351 --> 00:09:21,837 His introduction to the Klan is folklore. 183 00:09:21,871 --> 00:09:24,598 The farm he grew up on is not the plantation 184 00:09:24,633 --> 00:09:26,013 in "The Birth of a Nation." 185 00:09:26,048 --> 00:09:27,359 He doesn't have a father you can look up to 186 00:09:27,394 --> 00:09:28,809 like "The Birth of a Nation. 187 00:09:28,844 --> 00:09:31,501 There's no happy colored working in the fields, 188 00:09:31,536 --> 00:09:33,814 eating watermelon and singing happy. 189 00:09:33,849 --> 00:09:36,921 This poverty-ridden-- the Griffith family, 190 00:09:36,955 --> 00:09:38,819 from the time he's 14 years old, 191 00:09:38,854 --> 00:09:41,235 is considered white trash in the South. 192 00:09:41,270 --> 00:09:43,168 You feel as though it were true? 193 00:09:43,203 --> 00:09:44,618 Yes, I feel so. 194 00:09:44,653 --> 00:09:45,792 You know, when you've heard your father tell 195 00:09:45,826 --> 00:09:48,104 about fighting day after day, 196 00:09:48,139 --> 00:09:51,280 night after night, and about your mother 197 00:09:51,314 --> 00:09:53,765 staying up night after night 198 00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:56,147 sewing robes for the Klan. 199 00:09:56,181 --> 00:09:59,771 The Klan, at that time... 200 00:09:59,806 --> 00:10:02,809 was needed and served a purpose. 201 00:10:02,843 --> 00:10:05,743 Yes, I think it's true. 202 00:10:05,777 --> 00:10:09,781 But, as Pontius Pilate said, "Truth..." 203 00:10:12,301 --> 00:10:15,131 "What is...the truth?" 204 00:10:15,166 --> 00:10:17,064 Gallen: By the time Griffith's 10 years old, 205 00:10:17,099 --> 00:10:21,068 his father dies, drinking, and his family is in poverty. 206 00:10:21,103 --> 00:10:24,037 but Griffith now wants to be a great writer. 207 00:10:24,071 --> 00:10:25,659 Then he works in a bookstore, 208 00:10:25,694 --> 00:10:27,834 and everybody in the local bookstore 209 00:10:27,868 --> 00:10:30,768 who's coming to visit are artists, actors. 210 00:10:30,802 --> 00:10:33,322 From there, he sees to be a great writer, 211 00:10:33,356 --> 00:10:35,842 you have to be an actor to learn your craft. 212 00:10:35,876 --> 00:10:38,603 Now, something exciting is happening 213 00:10:38,638 --> 00:10:40,536 in the world after the Civil War. 214 00:10:40,570 --> 00:10:43,435 People can now travel the country for the first time. 215 00:10:43,470 --> 00:10:45,023 So what happens? 216 00:10:45,058 --> 00:10:47,819 Acting groups are getting together and they're traveling. 217 00:10:47,854 --> 00:10:51,996 So, from the age of 14 till almost 30, 218 00:10:52,030 --> 00:10:54,515 he is broke, traveling the country, 219 00:10:54,550 --> 00:10:57,760 learning to be an actor and eventually a playwright. 220 00:10:57,795 --> 00:11:00,798 Lehr: By the 1890s, he was an aspiring stage actor. 221 00:11:00,832 --> 00:11:02,523 That's what his dream was. 222 00:11:02,558 --> 00:11:04,456 The problem was he wasn't all that talented. 223 00:11:04,491 --> 00:11:06,804 He was struggling, he needed money, 224 00:11:06,838 --> 00:11:08,909 and there was this sort of new thing 225 00:11:08,944 --> 00:11:10,497 that was gaining a foothold, 226 00:11:10,531 --> 00:11:12,982 the front end of a media revolution. 227 00:11:13,017 --> 00:11:16,503 Nickelodeons were underway, these very short films, 228 00:11:16,537 --> 00:11:19,471 and some friends of his said, "You ought to take a job acting 229 00:11:19,506 --> 00:11:21,508 "on one of those, 'cause the money's decent 230 00:11:21,542 --> 00:11:23,165 and you need work." 231 00:11:23,199 --> 00:11:25,685 [Rollicking piano music playing] 232 00:11:41,424 --> 00:11:43,875 Charlie Musser: The first motion pictures were not meant 233 00:11:43,910 --> 00:11:45,463 to be projected on a screen. They were looked at 234 00:11:45,497 --> 00:11:47,189 in peephole kinetoscopes. 235 00:11:47,223 --> 00:11:49,778 [Kinetoscope whirring] 236 00:11:51,780 --> 00:11:54,541 One of the things that's really interesting about those films is 237 00:11:54,575 --> 00:11:58,303 that all the performers are treated the same. 238 00:11:59,891 --> 00:12:03,861 A huge number of those films were of dancers, 239 00:12:03,895 --> 00:12:06,933 including African-American dancers. 240 00:12:06,967 --> 00:12:10,143 And there's a certain kind of equality. 241 00:12:10,177 --> 00:12:13,940 but then something happened with the arrival of projection. 242 00:12:16,770 --> 00:12:19,669 Suddenly you had a different kind of film. 243 00:12:19,704 --> 00:12:23,225 Films of black chicken thieves, 244 00:12:23,259 --> 00:12:27,747 tracked by bloodhounds, in which a black criminal is lynched... 245 00:12:32,959 --> 00:12:37,584 the whole range of clichés that suddenly appeared on the screen 246 00:12:37,618 --> 00:12:41,174 and they appeared all at once. So the beginnings of cinema 247 00:12:41,208 --> 00:12:44,487 really began at the same moment of "Plessy vs. Ferguson," 248 00:12:44,522 --> 00:12:46,489 which involved "separate but equal," 249 00:12:46,524 --> 00:12:48,008 the institution of the Jim Crow, 250 00:12:48,043 --> 00:12:50,804 so you really see that in these early films. 251 00:12:52,288 --> 00:12:55,602 Narrator: As the Supreme Court is ratifying racial segregation 252 00:12:55,636 --> 00:12:58,087 with the "Plessy vs. Ferguson" case, 253 00:12:58,122 --> 00:13:03,092 African-American leadership is undergoing a dramatic change. 254 00:13:03,127 --> 00:13:06,613 Cathcart: 1895 is an incredible year. 255 00:13:06,647 --> 00:13:10,168 Trotter and Du Bois both graduate from Harvard, 256 00:13:10,203 --> 00:13:13,516 Frederick Douglass passes away, 257 00:13:13,551 --> 00:13:17,313 and Booker T. Washington takes his place, all in the same year. 258 00:13:17,348 --> 00:13:20,834 With Washington, it begins with the speech he gives in Atlanta, 259 00:13:20,869 --> 00:13:24,320 a speech that had people standing in the aisles 260 00:13:24,355 --> 00:13:26,702 clapping their hands. 261 00:13:26,736 --> 00:13:29,325 Narrator: Washington argues that African-Americans 262 00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:33,157 should accept racial segregation as long as they are permitted 263 00:13:33,191 --> 00:13:35,676 to pursue educational opportunities 264 00:13:35,711 --> 00:13:40,198 and economic development with equal protection under the law. 265 00:13:40,233 --> 00:13:42,407 Cathcart: You won't run for public office, 266 00:13:42,442 --> 00:13:44,513 you won't vote, you won't engage in politics, 267 00:13:44,547 --> 00:13:46,446 you'll just keep your head down and work. 268 00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:48,172 White America loved this. 269 00:13:48,206 --> 00:13:52,245 As Trotter begins to watch the growing power 270 00:13:52,279 --> 00:13:54,764 that Booker T. Washington has in the nation, 271 00:13:54,799 --> 00:13:57,871 but whose rhetoric is one of African-Americans 272 00:13:57,906 --> 00:14:01,737 not demanding their full and equal rights, he realizes 273 00:14:01,771 --> 00:14:04,774 that this man is not speaking for all of black America. 274 00:14:04,809 --> 00:14:07,329 He might be speaking for the 90% of African-Americans 275 00:14:07,363 --> 00:14:09,849 who are living in the South, but he's not speaking 276 00:14:09,883 --> 00:14:13,576 for those African-Americans who are classically educated. 277 00:14:13,611 --> 00:14:16,579 Narrator: As Trotter's political perspective evolves, 278 00:14:16,614 --> 00:14:18,650 so does his personal life. 279 00:14:18,685 --> 00:14:21,308 On June 27, 1899, 280 00:14:21,343 --> 00:14:23,241 he marries Deenie. 281 00:14:23,276 --> 00:14:26,831 The newlyweds move to Jones Hill in Dorchester, 282 00:14:26,866 --> 00:14:29,903 a predominantly white Boston neighborhood. 283 00:14:29,938 --> 00:14:32,147 Cathcart: I think, at the point in which Deenie 284 00:14:32,181 --> 00:14:34,459 and Monroe Trotter married, 285 00:14:34,494 --> 00:14:38,912 they really expected to have that perfect life of the elite. 286 00:14:38,947 --> 00:14:42,743 Bob Bellinger: After the 1896 "Plessy vs. Ferguson" case, 287 00:14:42,778 --> 00:14:45,885 segregation creeped into all corners of the country. 288 00:14:45,919 --> 00:14:49,233 Eventually, Trotter began to feel the sting 289 00:14:49,267 --> 00:14:52,892 of segregation as it closed in on Boston. 290 00:14:52,926 --> 00:14:55,722 Cathcart: So Trotter, up until this point, 291 00:14:55,756 --> 00:14:59,070 has really only experienced the best of what America 292 00:14:59,105 --> 00:15:02,349 could really offer someone, only to find that all of that stops 293 00:15:02,384 --> 00:15:04,455 when he gets out of the Harvard bubble. 294 00:15:04,489 --> 00:15:07,665 When that bubble bursts, that's when he becomes more radicalized 295 00:15:07,699 --> 00:15:10,254 concerning race politics in Boston. 296 00:15:10,288 --> 00:15:12,601 Man, as Trotter: The conviction grew upon me that pursuit 297 00:15:12,635 --> 00:15:15,535 of business, money, civic, or literary position 298 00:15:15,569 --> 00:15:18,089 was like building a house upon the sands, 299 00:15:18,124 --> 00:15:21,644 if race, prejudice, and public discrimination was to spread up 300 00:15:21,679 --> 00:15:25,614 from the South and result in a fixed caste of color. 301 00:15:25,648 --> 00:15:28,168 Narrator: Determined to make a difference as a voice 302 00:15:28,203 --> 00:15:32,000 for equal rights, Trotter develops beliefs increasingly 303 00:15:32,034 --> 00:15:36,866 at odds with the establishment leader of African-Americans. 304 00:15:36,901 --> 00:15:38,799 That was what fueled his founding 305 00:15:38,834 --> 00:15:42,320 of "The Guardian" newspaper. 306 00:15:42,355 --> 00:15:46,221 And they began to challenge Booker T. Washington. 307 00:15:46,255 --> 00:15:48,602 Narrator: On November 9, 1901, 308 00:15:48,637 --> 00:15:52,227 Trotter and friend George W. Forbes published 309 00:15:52,261 --> 00:15:54,091 the first issue of "The Guardian." 310 00:15:54,125 --> 00:15:57,232 The masthead lists William Monroe Trotter 311 00:15:57,266 --> 00:15:59,751 as Managing Editor. 312 00:15:59,786 --> 00:16:02,754 The editorial page features the motto, 313 00:16:02,789 --> 00:16:06,241 "For Every Right With All Thy Might." 314 00:16:06,275 --> 00:16:08,933 Gates: Trotter is becoming more and more disgusted 315 00:16:08,968 --> 00:16:11,039 by Washington's direct 316 00:16:11,073 --> 00:16:12,385 interventionist politics, 317 00:16:12,419 --> 00:16:13,662 meaning he doesn't like 318 00:16:13,696 --> 00:16:14,801 criticism, so he's trying 319 00:16:14,835 --> 00:16:16,285 to influence newspapers and what 320 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:17,493 they will write about him. 321 00:16:17,528 --> 00:16:18,701 But you can never underestimate 322 00:16:18,736 --> 00:16:20,427 the power of ego in all this: 323 00:16:20,462 --> 00:16:22,015 "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, 324 00:16:22,050 --> 00:16:23,810 who's the greatest Negro of all?" 325 00:16:23,844 --> 00:16:27,227 Is it going to be Washington, is it going to be Du Bois, 326 00:16:27,262 --> 00:16:30,990 or the first black member of Phi Beta Kappa 327 00:16:31,024 --> 00:16:33,751 from Harvard University, William Monroe Trotter? 328 00:16:33,785 --> 00:16:35,925 Cathcart: In 1903, 329 00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:37,927 Booker T. Washington comes to Boston 330 00:16:37,962 --> 00:16:39,067 to give a big speech. 331 00:16:39,101 --> 00:16:42,104 2,000 people jammed in this church, 332 00:16:42,139 --> 00:16:44,969 and Trotter has prepared these 9 questions, 333 00:16:45,004 --> 00:16:48,455 embarrassing questions, to ask Washington. 334 00:16:48,490 --> 00:16:51,044 Man, as Trotter: In your letter to the Montgomery... 335 00:16:51,079 --> 00:16:52,528 In your speech before the Century Club... 336 00:16:52,563 --> 00:16:55,048 Black men must distinguish between the freedom 337 00:16:55,083 --> 00:16:58,189 that is forced and the freedom that is a result of struggle... 338 00:16:58,224 --> 00:17:00,191 Don't you know you would help the race more 339 00:17:00,226 --> 00:17:02,366 by exposing the new form of slavery... 340 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:05,369 ...are the rope and the torch all the race is 341 00:17:05,403 --> 00:17:07,371 to get under your leadership. 342 00:17:07,405 --> 00:17:09,580 Cathcart: Trotter gets up on top of a chair and begins 343 00:17:09,614 --> 00:17:11,720 shouting at Washington, but at the same time, 344 00:17:11,754 --> 00:17:13,894 other people are shouting, someone throws cayenne pepper 345 00:17:13,929 --> 00:17:15,310 on the stage. 346 00:17:15,344 --> 00:17:16,725 [Trotter, people shouting] 347 00:17:16,759 --> 00:17:19,348 Cathcart: Folks are sneezing and screaming. 348 00:17:19,383 --> 00:17:21,523 Fights are beginning to break out. 349 00:17:21,557 --> 00:17:24,974 The police come and begin hauling people away. 350 00:17:25,009 --> 00:17:27,529 The Washington faction pressed charges. 351 00:17:27,563 --> 00:17:31,050 Trotter ends up spending 30 days in jail. 352 00:17:31,084 --> 00:17:32,982 Deenie is watching her husband 353 00:17:33,017 --> 00:17:35,054 go through all of this 354 00:17:35,088 --> 00:17:37,056 the same time that Du Bois and 355 00:17:37,090 --> 00:17:38,712 his family is staying with them. 356 00:17:38,747 --> 00:17:40,887 Now, remember, this is 1903. 357 00:17:40,921 --> 00:17:44,822 In 1903, Du Bois also publishes "The Souls of Black Folk," 358 00:17:44,856 --> 00:17:47,066 which essentially criticizes Washington. 359 00:17:47,100 --> 00:17:50,414 Du Bois is slowly becoming convinced 360 00:17:50,448 --> 00:17:52,416 that this neutral stance 361 00:17:52,450 --> 00:17:55,453 he had been taking has to change. 362 00:17:57,455 --> 00:17:59,423 Narrator: Joining together in opposition 363 00:17:59,457 --> 00:18:03,185 to Booker T. Washington, Du Bois and Trotter head 364 00:18:03,220 --> 00:18:05,601 to Niagara Falls to found a movement 365 00:18:05,636 --> 00:18:08,121 with other black intellectuals. 366 00:18:08,156 --> 00:18:12,160 These 29 men have chosen the Falls intentionally 367 00:18:12,194 --> 00:18:14,541 as a symbol of the mighty currents of change 368 00:18:14,576 --> 00:18:18,166 the group wants to bring to American race relations. 369 00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:21,617 Although Du Bois and Trotter agree on objectives, 370 00:18:21,652 --> 00:18:24,758 they disagree on the methods of implementation. 371 00:18:26,105 --> 00:18:29,177 As the Niagara Movement becomes the foundation 372 00:18:29,211 --> 00:18:32,283 for the NAACP, Trotter leaves 373 00:18:32,318 --> 00:18:36,391 to pursue his own politics of direct action. 374 00:18:39,635 --> 00:18:42,707 Gallen: At the point in time that Griffith in 1908 375 00:18:42,742 --> 00:18:45,193 is at Biograph, the most exciting film is 376 00:18:45,227 --> 00:18:47,781 "The Great Train Robbery." 377 00:18:47,816 --> 00:18:50,819 That has somewhat of a storyline. 378 00:18:54,857 --> 00:18:57,066 The only thing people are seeing are 379 00:18:57,101 --> 00:18:59,310 shots of little funny scenes. 380 00:19:04,936 --> 00:19:06,662 Gallen: That's where Griffith comes in. 381 00:19:06,697 --> 00:19:09,182 Lehr: The early days of film, they're all silent movies, 382 00:19:09,217 --> 00:19:12,668 and he had a sense that he had to do more with the camera 383 00:19:12,703 --> 00:19:14,291 because there weren't words. 384 00:19:14,325 --> 00:19:17,535 He was a great innovator in that regard. 385 00:19:20,573 --> 00:19:22,506 He's been credited with introducing, 386 00:19:22,540 --> 00:19:25,164 if not inventing, a number of film techniques. 387 00:19:25,198 --> 00:19:28,097 Melvyn Stokes: What Griffith does is he tells stories 388 00:19:28,132 --> 00:19:30,238 brilliantly by editing. 389 00:19:33,551 --> 00:19:36,278 Stokes: This is very influential. 390 00:19:40,420 --> 00:19:42,767 Gallen: He's the conductor, taking every technique that's 391 00:19:42,802 --> 00:19:45,391 been around since the beginning of motion pictures 392 00:19:45,425 --> 00:19:47,531 and putting it into a storyline. 393 00:19:47,565 --> 00:19:49,326 Lehr: The audiences reacted to that 394 00:19:49,360 --> 00:19:51,707 because it enhanced the drama. 395 00:19:52,984 --> 00:19:54,952 Musser: He found stars-- 396 00:19:54,986 --> 00:19:57,955 Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, 397 00:19:57,989 --> 00:20:00,440 and even Henry Walthall. 398 00:20:00,475 --> 00:20:02,753 So he had a remarkable cast. 399 00:20:02,787 --> 00:20:04,858 Lehr: Once he got involved and was directing 400 00:20:04,893 --> 00:20:07,206 and became an accomplished filmmaker 401 00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:10,105 of these shorts, that wasn't enough for him. 402 00:20:10,139 --> 00:20:13,039 He saw and imagined film 403 00:20:13,073 --> 00:20:15,352 on a much larger scale. 404 00:20:22,290 --> 00:20:24,257 And he was incredibly ambitious. 405 00:20:24,292 --> 00:20:26,259 He wanted to take this new medium 406 00:20:26,294 --> 00:20:28,537 and elevate it to an art form. 407 00:20:30,194 --> 00:20:32,852 Brown: As a filmmaker, he's trying to have an effect. 408 00:20:32,886 --> 00:20:34,888 What he's trying to do is reach an audience, 409 00:20:34,923 --> 00:20:37,270 and what filmmakers are beginning to learn 410 00:20:37,305 --> 00:20:39,479 in the early 20th century, 411 00:20:39,514 --> 00:20:41,585 psychology--getting into people's imaginations, 412 00:20:41,619 --> 00:20:43,518 getting into their fantasies-- is the best way 413 00:20:43,552 --> 00:20:46,831 to get them to identify with what they see on-screen. 414 00:20:46,866 --> 00:20:48,661 The films that you remember are 415 00:20:48,695 --> 00:20:50,663 the films that make you feel something, 416 00:20:50,697 --> 00:20:52,872 and one of the things you feel most strongly 417 00:20:52,906 --> 00:20:54,701 is fear and terror. 418 00:20:54,736 --> 00:20:57,773 If I put them on the big screen, oh, I'm gonna have a connection. 419 00:20:57,808 --> 00:21:00,638 You're gonna come back, you're gonna want to see this. 420 00:21:19,347 --> 00:21:21,901 Narrator: In 1913, while Griffith heads west 421 00:21:21,935 --> 00:21:24,455 with big ideas about entertainment, 422 00:21:24,490 --> 00:21:26,975 Trotter is focused on what's happening 423 00:21:27,009 --> 00:21:28,908 in the nation's capital. 424 00:21:28,942 --> 00:21:32,256 The previous year, his newspaper, "The Guardian," 425 00:21:32,291 --> 00:21:34,189 endorsed Woodrow Wilson. 426 00:21:34,223 --> 00:21:37,399 As the first Southern President since the Civil War, 427 00:21:37,434 --> 00:21:41,300 Wilson pledges to give African-Americans a fair deal, 428 00:21:41,334 --> 00:21:44,406 but when he takes office, he appoints five Southerners 429 00:21:44,441 --> 00:21:49,825 to his cabinet, who segregate white and black workers. 430 00:21:49,860 --> 00:21:52,690 Lehr: Federal agencies and offices were segregated 431 00:21:52,725 --> 00:21:54,485 in ways they hadn't been before. 432 00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,316 Trotter was understandably very upset about this. 433 00:21:57,350 --> 00:22:00,215 In 1913, he led a delegation 434 00:22:00,249 --> 00:22:02,217 that included Ida B. Wells, who was another 435 00:22:02,251 --> 00:22:04,219 very prominent civil rights leader, 436 00:22:04,253 --> 00:22:06,635 to a meeting at the White House with the President 437 00:22:06,670 --> 00:22:09,293 to complain about this backsliding, 438 00:22:09,328 --> 00:22:13,435 to the introduction of Jim Crow in national government. 439 00:22:13,470 --> 00:22:16,231 Gates: Wilson re-introducing Jim Crow-- 440 00:22:16,265 --> 00:22:18,267 that's what really galvanized people. 441 00:22:18,302 --> 00:22:20,753 It was so egregious; putting up screens 442 00:22:20,787 --> 00:22:23,100 between black and white workers 443 00:22:23,134 --> 00:22:25,344 in a federal office who had been working together. 444 00:22:25,378 --> 00:22:26,724 It was horrific. 445 00:22:26,759 --> 00:22:28,726 Lehr: They brought along a diagram 446 00:22:28,761 --> 00:22:30,556 of the different federal agencies 447 00:22:30,590 --> 00:22:32,903 that had become segregated under Wilson's watch. 448 00:22:32,937 --> 00:22:36,147 It was a diagram drawn by Monroe Trotter's wife Deenie 449 00:22:36,182 --> 00:22:39,081 after she'd researched what was going on in Washington. 450 00:22:39,116 --> 00:22:42,084 So they had a meeting. Trotter came away under the impression 451 00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:44,224 that Wilson would do something about it. 452 00:22:44,259 --> 00:22:47,020 Fast-forward a year later, not only had Wilson not done 453 00:22:47,055 --> 00:22:48,953 anything about it, it had gotten worse. 454 00:22:48,988 --> 00:22:51,715 [Telephone rings]So in the fall of 1914, 455 00:22:51,749 --> 00:22:54,303 Trotter wanted a second visit, a follow-up, 456 00:22:54,338 --> 00:22:56,444 and he got that in late November. 457 00:22:56,478 --> 00:22:58,894 He was back in the Oval Office with the President 458 00:22:58,929 --> 00:23:00,827 and with a small delegation of people. 459 00:23:00,862 --> 00:23:04,521 He began talking frankly and firmly to Wilson about 460 00:23:04,555 --> 00:23:07,213 his disappointment and about black America's disappointment. 461 00:23:07,247 --> 00:23:10,043 Mr. President, we come to renew the protest 462 00:23:10,078 --> 00:23:12,287 and appeal represented just a year ago. 463 00:23:12,321 --> 00:23:14,772 For 50 years, white and colored clerks 464 00:23:14,807 --> 00:23:17,016 have been working together in peace, 465 00:23:17,050 --> 00:23:18,431 harmony, and friendliness. 466 00:23:18,466 --> 00:23:20,433 Soon after your inauguration, 467 00:23:20,468 --> 00:23:23,505 segregation was dramatically introduced. 468 00:23:23,540 --> 00:23:25,645 Lehr: Trotter was just presenting his case. 469 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:27,164 He wasn't going to back down even if it was 470 00:23:27,198 --> 00:23:28,683 the President of the United States. 471 00:23:28,717 --> 00:23:32,100 And suddenly he was catapulted back into the national stage 472 00:23:32,134 --> 00:23:34,033 in the front pages of newspapers everywhere. 473 00:23:34,067 --> 00:23:36,932 Gates: Trotter thought that he had the intellectual heft 474 00:23:36,967 --> 00:23:39,348 and the credentials to go to the White House 475 00:23:39,383 --> 00:23:41,937 and speak to Wilson, man to man, 476 00:23:41,972 --> 00:23:44,112 and tell him he had made a mistake, and Wilson looked 477 00:23:44,146 --> 00:23:46,701 at him like, "What language are you speaking, boy?" 478 00:23:46,735 --> 00:23:48,116 You know, "You're talking to me? 479 00:23:48,150 --> 00:23:50,049 Your ass is out of the White House." 480 00:23:50,083 --> 00:23:52,154 And you have to imagine the toll 481 00:23:52,189 --> 00:23:56,262 that must have taken on William Monroe Trotter. 482 00:24:02,579 --> 00:24:05,616 Lehr: By the time the year 1914 comes around, 483 00:24:05,651 --> 00:24:08,239 Griffith is truly, if not at the top of his game, 484 00:24:08,274 --> 00:24:09,827 very close to it. 485 00:24:09,862 --> 00:24:12,243 He's looking for a big story to tell. 486 00:24:12,278 --> 00:24:16,006 It was a friend who told him about an amazingly popular novel 487 00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:17,939 that was written a few years earlier 488 00:24:17,973 --> 00:24:20,010 called "The Clansman," 489 00:24:20,044 --> 00:24:22,150 by a writer named Thomas Dixon. 490 00:24:22,184 --> 00:24:24,393 "The Clansman" was a massive bestseller. 491 00:24:24,428 --> 00:24:26,672 It is that book that eventually is made 492 00:24:26,706 --> 00:24:29,019 into a stage play and a drama. 493 00:24:29,053 --> 00:24:31,021 It even caused some riots 494 00:24:31,055 --> 00:24:32,988 and mob protests. 495 00:24:33,023 --> 00:24:35,266 Musser: The play on which "Birth of a Nation" was based, 496 00:24:35,301 --> 00:24:37,199 "The Clansman," had produced race riots. 497 00:24:37,234 --> 00:24:39,270 I mean, there was a precedent for being concerned 498 00:24:39,305 --> 00:24:41,756 about this particular story. 499 00:24:41,790 --> 00:24:43,758 David Blight: When Dixon and Griffith finally meet 500 00:24:43,792 --> 00:24:46,761 in New York City in 1909, 501 00:24:46,795 --> 00:24:49,695 that book has been a massive bestseller, 502 00:24:49,729 --> 00:24:52,283 a very popular stage play, 503 00:24:52,318 --> 00:24:55,286 and it is not only a celebration 504 00:24:55,321 --> 00:24:58,773 of the Ku Klux Klan as this noble crusade 505 00:24:58,807 --> 00:25:01,120 to save the South and the country, 506 00:25:01,154 --> 00:25:03,398 it is a viciously racist, 507 00:25:03,432 --> 00:25:06,263 violent advocacy 508 00:25:06,297 --> 00:25:08,368 of doing whatever it takes 509 00:25:08,403 --> 00:25:12,096 to hold black people down, to thwart their intentions, 510 00:25:12,131 --> 00:25:14,823 and when they get out of their place... 511 00:25:16,169 --> 00:25:18,171 to kill them. 512 00:25:27,940 --> 00:25:32,565 Narrator: By the late summer of 1914, Griffith is risking 513 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,568 his reputation and financial ruin 514 00:25:35,603 --> 00:25:39,192 investing thousands of dollars in the film. 515 00:25:39,227 --> 00:25:41,678 Under the blistering California sun, 516 00:25:41,712 --> 00:25:44,612 Griffith commands a massive production army 517 00:25:44,646 --> 00:25:47,615 to produce the motion picture that is still called 518 00:25:47,649 --> 00:25:49,168 "The Clansman." 519 00:25:49,202 --> 00:25:50,790 Stokes: The way Griffith works, he does 520 00:25:50,825 --> 00:25:52,896 very extensive rehearsals 521 00:25:52,930 --> 00:25:55,657 before shooting even starts. 522 00:25:55,692 --> 00:26:00,110 Because you're dealing with what Griffith sees as miscegenation, 523 00:26:00,144 --> 00:26:04,563 Lillian Gish with her long mane of fair hair, fragile blonde, 524 00:26:04,597 --> 00:26:06,944 looks much better when measured against George Siegmann, 525 00:26:06,979 --> 00:26:09,878 who's going to play the mulatto threat, Silas Lynch. 526 00:26:09,913 --> 00:26:12,018 Reginald Hudlin: The interesting thing 527 00:26:12,053 --> 00:26:14,573 about the racism of the film is 528 00:26:14,607 --> 00:26:17,334 the most dangerous thing being the half-breed, 529 00:26:17,368 --> 00:26:19,992 because he has the intelligence of the white man, 530 00:26:20,026 --> 00:26:22,684 but all the evil brutality of the black man. 531 00:26:25,204 --> 00:26:28,276 So many complex racial arguments going on with stuff like that. 532 00:26:28,310 --> 00:26:30,278 How do you define race? 533 00:26:30,312 --> 00:26:32,763 Race doesn't exist scientifically, 534 00:26:32,798 --> 00:26:37,388 but once you introduce the idea of racism, 535 00:26:37,423 --> 00:26:39,183 you can't remove it. 536 00:26:39,218 --> 00:26:42,773 Brown: One of the things that racial pornography does 537 00:26:42,808 --> 00:26:45,396 is it makes people's fantasies literal. 538 00:26:45,431 --> 00:26:48,123 It puts them up on the screen and it says, 539 00:26:48,158 --> 00:26:50,747 "Look, you can actually see a picture of this. 540 00:26:50,781 --> 00:26:53,681 What you have in your mind, it's like this." 541 00:26:53,715 --> 00:26:55,648 That's the real danger. 542 00:26:55,683 --> 00:26:59,479 You think that your fantasies can be materialized. 543 00:26:59,514 --> 00:27:02,966 This kind of racist pornography becomes people's vision 544 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,416 of real life, that they can't see what's in front 545 00:27:05,451 --> 00:27:07,418 of their face because of the filter 546 00:27:07,453 --> 00:27:10,490 of that pornographic imagery of blackness. 547 00:27:11,975 --> 00:27:14,805 You think that black people really are as scary 548 00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,843 as you imagine them to be, and that if you happen 549 00:27:17,877 --> 00:27:20,777 to shoot one, you're acting in self-defense, 550 00:27:20,811 --> 00:27:22,986 and even in the defense of civilization. 551 00:27:31,753 --> 00:27:34,963 Gallen: The opening of the film begins in California. 552 00:27:34,998 --> 00:27:37,517 [Rousing orchestral music] 553 00:27:37,552 --> 00:27:39,934 And Griffith hires the Philharmonic Orchestra 554 00:27:39,968 --> 00:27:43,109 to come in to do the score. 555 00:27:43,144 --> 00:27:44,663 Picture you're sitting there. 556 00:27:44,697 --> 00:27:47,666 It's just not the imagery on the screen when this starts. 557 00:27:47,700 --> 00:27:49,702 You are caught up right into the movie 558 00:27:49,737 --> 00:27:52,498 with a 120-piece orchestra playing? 559 00:27:52,532 --> 00:27:54,603 You want to get up and start killing somebody. 560 00:27:54,638 --> 00:27:56,571 You can't help it. 561 00:27:57,986 --> 00:28:00,748 Brown: The first scene of the film is the inter-title, 562 00:28:00,782 --> 00:28:02,957 which says the bringing of the African 563 00:28:02,991 --> 00:28:05,684 to America's shores sowed the seeds of disunion. 564 00:28:07,271 --> 00:28:10,205 That's the first villain in the film-- 565 00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,277 not slavery itself, but the African. 566 00:28:14,727 --> 00:28:17,626 The next scene shows you the abolitionists, 567 00:28:17,661 --> 00:28:21,492 and then you launch into a happy scene of the before, 568 00:28:21,527 --> 00:28:23,702 before the Civil War, 569 00:28:23,736 --> 00:28:26,152 with "Way Back Along the Suwannee River" playing 570 00:28:26,187 --> 00:28:29,535 in the background, and you see this idyllic scene 571 00:28:29,569 --> 00:28:32,780 of what's called "a quaintly life that is no more"-- 572 00:28:32,814 --> 00:28:35,368 Southern life on the plantations. 573 00:28:35,403 --> 00:28:37,681 Lehr: There's really two big acts, 574 00:28:37,716 --> 00:28:40,684 and the first act is the Civil War... 575 00:28:42,168 --> 00:28:45,137 and telling the story of the Civil War dramatically 576 00:28:45,171 --> 00:28:48,002 through the lives and the interactions of two families: 577 00:28:48,036 --> 00:28:51,108 the Camerons from this fictional town of Piedmont, 578 00:28:51,143 --> 00:28:54,802 South Carolina, and the Stonemans from the North. 579 00:28:54,836 --> 00:28:57,977 They've known each other before the war. 580 00:28:58,012 --> 00:29:00,393 There's friendships, there's romances. 581 00:29:00,428 --> 00:29:02,706 The war tears them apart. 582 00:29:02,741 --> 00:29:06,365 Part Two is by far the most controversial. 583 00:29:06,399 --> 00:29:08,885 In Griffith's view, Reconstruction in the South 584 00:29:08,919 --> 00:29:10,956 was a disaster. 585 00:29:10,990 --> 00:29:13,027 Narrator: Under Reconstruction 586 00:29:13,061 --> 00:29:14,925 in Griffith's fictitious South, 587 00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:18,273 freed slaves use their new legislative power 588 00:29:18,308 --> 00:29:21,656 to pass the most terrifying law imaginable. 589 00:29:22,864 --> 00:29:26,178 Blacks now have the right to marry whites. 590 00:29:28,870 --> 00:29:33,426 And the savage black lust of Northern soldier Gus is 591 00:29:33,461 --> 00:29:37,534 unleashed on the little sister Flora Cameron... 592 00:29:40,986 --> 00:29:44,644 while the seething carpetbagger Silas Lynch 593 00:29:44,679 --> 00:29:47,233 preys on Elsie Stoneman. 594 00:29:48,407 --> 00:29:51,859 The Ku Klux Klan must restore racial order 595 00:29:51,893 --> 00:29:54,827 through blood vengeance. 596 00:29:54,862 --> 00:29:57,347 Paul Miller: "Birth of a Nation" at a time-- 597 00:29:57,381 --> 00:29:59,349 in 1915, when it came out, you have to remember, 598 00:29:59,383 --> 00:30:01,558 silent film was relatively new. 599 00:30:01,592 --> 00:30:03,560 Sound was something that you weren't supposed 600 00:30:03,594 --> 00:30:05,596 to really think of, 601 00:30:05,631 --> 00:30:08,841 but it was meant to enhance the experience of the film. 602 00:30:08,876 --> 00:30:11,844 ["Ride of the Valkyries" playing] 603 00:30:21,302 --> 00:30:23,822 Miller: Griffith, when he was working on the film, thought 604 00:30:23,856 --> 00:30:27,239 it would be really wild to repurpose Wagner's music, 605 00:30:27,273 --> 00:30:29,344 especially stuff like "Ride of the Valkyries." 606 00:30:29,379 --> 00:30:31,346 That got transformed into a piece 607 00:30:31,381 --> 00:30:33,107 called "Ride of the Clansman." 608 00:30:33,141 --> 00:30:35,972 ["Ride of the Valkyries" playing] 609 00:30:43,531 --> 00:30:45,844 Miller: Wagner was an anti-Semite, 610 00:30:45,878 --> 00:30:48,777 his racial politics by our standards would be Neanderthal, 611 00:30:48,812 --> 00:30:51,988 but he was viewed as the epitome of the refined composer 612 00:30:52,022 --> 00:30:53,265 of Europe. 613 00:30:53,299 --> 00:30:55,198 D.W. Griffith putting him as a soundtrack 614 00:30:55,232 --> 00:30:58,408 to "Birth of a Nation," this was a high cultural statement, 615 00:30:58,442 --> 00:31:01,411 and we can see where that went. 616 00:31:01,445 --> 00:31:04,448 [Music continues] 617 00:31:21,327 --> 00:31:24,744 Narrator: The film's hugely successful L.A. premiere 618 00:31:24,779 --> 00:31:28,403 revolutionizes motion pictures overnight. 619 00:31:28,438 --> 00:31:30,095 For the first time in history, 620 00:31:30,129 --> 00:31:32,856 a sophisticated marketing campaign 621 00:31:32,891 --> 00:31:35,514 lures audiences in droves. 622 00:31:35,548 --> 00:31:37,619 Gallen: Now, if I was a fly on the wall, it would be 623 00:31:37,654 --> 00:31:40,622 really interesting to be out in California when the heads 624 00:31:40,657 --> 00:31:44,074 of the NAACP walked out and saw for the first time 625 00:31:44,109 --> 00:31:47,802 posters of the Klan posted all over the walls. 626 00:31:49,321 --> 00:31:51,840 It's the 50th anniversary of the Civil War, 627 00:31:51,875 --> 00:31:54,222 and you think they're honoring the Ku Klux Klan. 628 00:31:54,257 --> 00:31:56,915 The first time the words "propaganda" and "film" 629 00:31:56,949 --> 00:31:59,400 is used in the same sentence is this. 630 00:31:59,434 --> 00:32:01,920 Bellinger: And one thing about this film, 631 00:32:01,954 --> 00:32:05,440 it brought together the energies of Booker T. Washington, 632 00:32:05,475 --> 00:32:09,134 William Monroe Trotter, and W.E.B. Du Bois. 633 00:32:09,168 --> 00:32:12,482 Washington, Du Bois, and Trotter recognized that they were 634 00:32:12,516 --> 00:32:15,726 dealing with a very new style of propaganda, 635 00:32:15,761 --> 00:32:20,041 so one of the efforts was to try to get it shut down. 636 00:32:20,076 --> 00:32:24,287 Narrator: The fledgling NAACP undertakes a desperate campaign 637 00:32:24,321 --> 00:32:28,291 of sending letters and telegraphs to censorship boards, 638 00:32:28,325 --> 00:32:30,638 demanding a halt to the film's roll-out. 639 00:32:30,672 --> 00:32:32,640 Ellen Scott: "Birth of a Nation" comes out 640 00:32:32,674 --> 00:32:35,954 around the same time of the birth of the NAACP. 641 00:32:35,988 --> 00:32:38,128 They used this to sort of formulate a language 642 00:32:38,163 --> 00:32:40,579 of civil rights. In other words, they're cutting their teeth 643 00:32:40,613 --> 00:32:43,754 as an organization on this film that is so racist, 644 00:32:43,789 --> 00:32:45,101 it has them say, wait a minute, 645 00:32:45,135 --> 00:32:47,379 we have to do something about this. 646 00:32:47,413 --> 00:32:49,381 Narrator: Afraid that growing resistance 647 00:32:49,415 --> 00:32:51,659 may weaken box office profits, 648 00:32:51,693 --> 00:32:54,489 Griffith boards a train to the nation's capital 649 00:32:54,524 --> 00:32:57,527 to consolidate support for his picture. 650 00:32:57,561 --> 00:33:00,357 He crosses a nation deeply divided 651 00:33:00,392 --> 00:33:04,810 by the color lines of Jim Crow. 652 00:33:04,844 --> 00:33:09,021 By the time his train pulls into Washington, D.C., 653 00:33:09,056 --> 00:33:12,024 "The Clansman" has been renamed 654 00:33:12,059 --> 00:33:14,026 "The Birth of a Nation." 655 00:33:14,061 --> 00:33:17,029 Blight: Dixon apparently suggested the title to Griffith 656 00:33:17,064 --> 00:33:19,031 rather than "The Clansman," 657 00:33:19,066 --> 00:33:22,345 this idea of the America re-created 658 00:33:22,379 --> 00:33:24,347 out of the victory over Reconstruction, 659 00:33:24,381 --> 00:33:27,798 which means, ipso facto, without question, 660 00:33:27,833 --> 00:33:29,904 a white supremacist nation. 661 00:33:29,938 --> 00:33:33,563 It's the birth of the new white supremacy. 662 00:33:37,498 --> 00:33:40,466 Spike Lee: The first time I saw "Birth of a Nation" 663 00:33:40,501 --> 00:33:43,159 in its entirety was here, 41 East 7th Street. 664 00:33:43,193 --> 00:33:48,026 That's where the old NYU graduate film school was. 665 00:33:49,510 --> 00:33:51,339 And they showed the film. 666 00:33:51,374 --> 00:33:54,653 They talked about how-- the great techniques 667 00:33:54,687 --> 00:33:57,449 that D.W. Griffith had invented. 668 00:33:58,657 --> 00:34:00,762 I asked some questions. 669 00:34:00,797 --> 00:34:02,661 I don't think the instructor liked 670 00:34:02,695 --> 00:34:04,663 the direction or the intention. 671 00:34:04,697 --> 00:34:07,597 That really turned into my first-year film. 672 00:34:08,770 --> 00:34:10,703 My film was called "The Answer," 673 00:34:10,738 --> 00:34:13,672 and it's about a young, black writer/director 674 00:34:13,706 --> 00:34:15,812 who's hired by a major studio 675 00:34:15,846 --> 00:34:18,435 to do a remake of "Birth of a Nation." 676 00:34:18,470 --> 00:34:21,438 I took the most offensive scenes 677 00:34:21,473 --> 00:34:23,958 from that film and put them in 678 00:34:23,992 --> 00:34:26,305 my film, "The Answer." 679 00:34:26,340 --> 00:34:29,584 The lead would rather commit suicide, 680 00:34:29,619 --> 00:34:36,074 plunge to her death, than be touched by a black man. 681 00:34:36,108 --> 00:34:38,006 I didn't have a problem 682 00:34:38,041 --> 00:34:40,112 with them showing the film, 683 00:34:40,147 --> 00:34:43,564 but they left out that film's almost--among other things, 684 00:34:43,598 --> 00:34:46,360 that was used as a recruiting tool by the Klan. 685 00:34:46,394 --> 00:34:48,327 They just said that he is the father of cinema 686 00:34:48,362 --> 00:34:51,054 and it's a great film, and watch it. 687 00:34:51,089 --> 00:34:54,126 No context whatsoever. 688 00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,926 Lehr: In early 1915, when the movie was coming out, 689 00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,308 being the 50th anniversary of the Civil War, 690 00:35:03,342 --> 00:35:05,482 Thomas Dixon and Griffith arranged 691 00:35:05,517 --> 00:35:07,415 to screen the film 692 00:35:07,450 --> 00:35:10,453 in the White House before President Wilson. 693 00:35:10,487 --> 00:35:14,388 Projectionists wore tuxedos-- it was a very formal affair-- 694 00:35:14,422 --> 00:35:16,459 and it was the first ever screening 695 00:35:16,493 --> 00:35:19,910 of a film inside the White House. 696 00:35:19,945 --> 00:35:22,810 Narrator: News that President Wilson will embrace 697 00:35:22,844 --> 00:35:27,401 D.W. Griffith's and Thomas Dixon's racial propaganda 698 00:35:27,435 --> 00:35:32,578 adds insult to the injury of the newly enacted segregation laws 699 00:35:32,613 --> 00:35:34,580 sweeping the country. 700 00:35:34,615 --> 00:35:37,100 The President agrees to view the picture 701 00:35:37,135 --> 00:35:40,621 as a personal favor to Dixon, his close friend 702 00:35:40,655 --> 00:35:45,281 since their college days at Johns Hopkins University. 703 00:35:45,315 --> 00:35:47,662 Blight: In fact, Thomas Dixon was actually part 704 00:35:47,697 --> 00:35:49,664 of this political cohort 705 00:35:49,699 --> 00:35:53,185 that helped create the political career of Woodrow Wilson. 706 00:35:53,220 --> 00:35:55,739 Lehr: And Dixon was a marketing master, 707 00:35:55,774 --> 00:35:57,914 so he understood the real P.R. value 708 00:35:57,948 --> 00:36:00,330 of showing this film very early to the President 709 00:36:00,365 --> 00:36:03,333 of the United States, and he and Griffith also knew, 710 00:36:03,368 --> 00:36:05,404 you know, Wilson was a historian. 711 00:36:05,439 --> 00:36:07,924 He had written a multi-volume 712 00:36:07,958 --> 00:36:09,995 work on American history. 713 00:36:10,029 --> 00:36:12,480 Blight: D.W. Griffith quotes 714 00:36:12,515 --> 00:36:15,000 from Woodrow Wilson's book on Reconstruction 715 00:36:15,034 --> 00:36:16,967 right in the movie. 716 00:36:17,002 --> 00:36:18,831 Brown: In 1902, Woodrow Wilson writes 717 00:36:18,866 --> 00:36:21,455 what congressional policy wrought upon the South was 718 00:36:21,489 --> 00:36:23,802 the "overthrow of civilization in the South," 719 00:36:23,836 --> 00:36:25,804 by putting "the white South 720 00:36:25,838 --> 00:36:27,806 under the heel" of black rule. 721 00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:28,910 That's Woodrow Wilson. 722 00:36:28,945 --> 00:36:30,188 Blight: Woodrow Wilson, 723 00:36:30,222 --> 00:36:31,499 Thomas Dixon, D.W. Griffith-- 724 00:36:31,534 --> 00:36:33,329 these guys were all children 725 00:36:33,363 --> 00:36:34,847 of Reconstruction, 726 00:36:34,882 --> 00:36:36,677 and their early adulthood 727 00:36:36,711 --> 00:36:37,954 became the immediate 728 00:36:37,988 --> 00:36:40,198 post-Reconstruction South. 729 00:36:40,232 --> 00:36:41,613 Lehr: Here you have this 730 00:36:41,647 --> 00:36:44,305 3-plus-hour epic drama, 731 00:36:44,340 --> 00:36:47,584 which portrays blacks as beasts, in effect, 732 00:36:47,619 --> 00:36:49,793 and it's playing in the White House, 733 00:36:49,828 --> 00:36:53,452 and everyone there thought it was a terrific piece of work. 734 00:36:53,487 --> 00:36:54,971 [Applause] 735 00:36:55,005 --> 00:36:57,801 Wilson seemed, by all accounts, to just soak it all up, 736 00:36:57,836 --> 00:37:01,253 was flattered, and was credited when the film ended 737 00:37:01,288 --> 00:37:04,222 as saying, "This is telling history as lightning." 738 00:37:04,256 --> 00:37:08,295 Hudlin: That's a genius, genius description of the movie, 739 00:37:08,329 --> 00:37:12,299 "lightning" meaning it's not just the electricity 740 00:37:12,333 --> 00:37:14,749 that is required to make a film, 741 00:37:14,784 --> 00:37:17,304 it also has an excitement. 742 00:37:17,338 --> 00:37:20,479 It had the power of the medium at its fullest 743 00:37:20,514 --> 00:37:22,964 and had an incredible message, 744 00:37:22,999 --> 00:37:26,485 and that message was horrifically racist. 745 00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:28,487 And then it had the endorsement 746 00:37:28,522 --> 00:37:32,284 of the White House to take it even further. 747 00:37:32,319 --> 00:37:34,769 Narrator: With the Presidential seal of approval, 748 00:37:34,804 --> 00:37:37,945 Griffith prepares to open his epic in New York City 749 00:37:37,979 --> 00:37:40,292 on March 3, 1915 750 00:37:40,327 --> 00:37:43,606 at the Liberty Theatre on 42nd Street. 751 00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,505 Stokes: The Liberty Theatre in New York is very careful, 752 00:37:46,540 --> 00:37:49,612 and they will not sell tickets to African-Americans. 753 00:37:51,130 --> 00:37:54,513 They know that if you do have some kind of racial altercation, 754 00:37:54,548 --> 00:37:56,929 if a fight breaks out, then maybe 755 00:37:56,964 --> 00:37:59,138 you might be able to get the film banned, 756 00:37:59,173 --> 00:38:01,313 so you've got to dampen that down. 757 00:38:01,348 --> 00:38:04,282 Narrator: Despite the NAACP's best efforts, 758 00:38:04,316 --> 00:38:07,423 the film is seen by thousands in its first few weeks 759 00:38:07,457 --> 00:38:10,598 of exhibition, and "The Birth of a Nation" 760 00:38:10,633 --> 00:38:12,773 becomes the most successful film 761 00:38:12,807 --> 00:38:15,948 during the silent film era. 762 00:38:15,983 --> 00:38:19,711 Stokes: There was a huge amount of effort from the NAACP. 763 00:38:19,745 --> 00:38:21,126 Doesn't work. 764 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:23,162 And then it's headed to Boston, 765 00:38:23,197 --> 00:38:25,475 and that's Trotter's hometown. 766 00:38:25,510 --> 00:38:27,408 Trotter felt, We have to meet it. 767 00:38:27,443 --> 00:38:29,617 We have to meet it head-on. 768 00:38:29,652 --> 00:38:33,345 Narrator: Trotter, once regarded as too radical, 769 00:38:33,380 --> 00:38:36,244 is now the last hope to stop the film. 770 00:38:36,279 --> 00:38:38,246 Man, as Trotter: Every performance heaps new, 771 00:38:38,281 --> 00:38:40,732 undeserved ignominy upon the Negro race. 772 00:38:40,766 --> 00:38:43,735 We think it should be stopped at once. 773 00:38:43,769 --> 00:38:47,670 Cobb: If you were William Monroe Trotter in 1915, 774 00:38:47,704 --> 00:38:50,914 you'd seen the "Plessy vs. Ferguson" decision 775 00:38:50,949 --> 00:38:52,571 in your lifetime, 776 00:38:52,606 --> 00:38:56,264 you'd seen the tide of social progress moving backward. 777 00:38:56,299 --> 00:38:57,956 When you see "Birth of a Nation," 778 00:38:57,990 --> 00:39:01,097 people like Monroe Trotter can look at this film, 779 00:39:01,131 --> 00:39:04,376 and they say, "This is exactly what we are fighting against." 780 00:39:04,411 --> 00:39:07,724 Lehr: Griffith and his people, they were gearing up for a fight 781 00:39:07,759 --> 00:39:10,071 because there was a well-organized history 782 00:39:10,106 --> 00:39:11,797 of civil rights in Boston. 783 00:39:11,832 --> 00:39:13,799 The feeling among the filmmakers: "If we can get 784 00:39:13,834 --> 00:39:16,388 the film through Boston, we can play it anywhere." 785 00:39:16,423 --> 00:39:18,666 Narrator: In 1915 Boston, 786 00:39:18,701 --> 00:39:22,394 censorship power resides in the office of James Curley, 787 00:39:22,429 --> 00:39:26,398 arguably the most powerful mayor in the city's history. 788 00:39:26,433 --> 00:39:30,022 Curley is a crusader of civic virtue, 789 00:39:30,057 --> 00:39:32,508 banning entertainment he finds morally 790 00:39:32,542 --> 00:39:35,683 and politically reprehensible. 791 00:39:35,718 --> 00:39:37,927 Cathcart: You have to understand, a few years earlier, 792 00:39:37,961 --> 00:39:40,654 the play "The Clansman" came to Boston, 793 00:39:40,688 --> 00:39:44,934 and Trotter demanded this play be closed down, and it was. 794 00:39:44,968 --> 00:39:46,487 So, from Trotter's point 795 00:39:46,522 --> 00:39:48,109 of view, he expected that 796 00:39:48,144 --> 00:39:49,490 the political structure 797 00:39:49,525 --> 00:39:51,768 would again do the same thing. 798 00:39:51,803 --> 00:39:53,598 Man, as Trotter: We hope to not let a day elapse 799 00:39:53,632 --> 00:39:56,117 before we request censors to act. 800 00:39:56,152 --> 00:39:58,119 Lehr: Trotter is a newspaperman, 801 00:39:58,154 --> 00:40:01,053 and he's the kind of guy, at first blush, you would think 802 00:40:01,088 --> 00:40:03,642 would be wrapping himself up in free expression, 803 00:40:03,677 --> 00:40:05,644 free press, arguments of the First Amendment, 804 00:40:05,679 --> 00:40:09,441 but here he is, seeking to suppress expression. 805 00:40:09,476 --> 00:40:11,478 And that seems paradoxical 806 00:40:11,512 --> 00:40:14,515 until you understand the dynamic at the time. 807 00:40:14,550 --> 00:40:17,587 Censorship wasn't the bugaboo that we think of it today, 808 00:40:17,622 --> 00:40:19,451 and the core of his argument-- 809 00:40:19,486 --> 00:40:21,626 the First Amendment is not without limits. 810 00:40:21,660 --> 00:40:25,526 This is expression that is so offensive to black America 811 00:40:25,561 --> 00:40:27,908 that it should not be seen. 812 00:40:27,942 --> 00:40:30,911 Narrator: Trying to head off the fight coming to his city, 813 00:40:30,945 --> 00:40:32,326 Curley convenes a hearing. 814 00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:35,191 For the first time, William Monroe Trotter 815 00:40:35,225 --> 00:40:38,643 and David Wark Griffith meet in person. 816 00:40:38,677 --> 00:40:40,714 Lehr: Griffith, in his defense of the movie, 817 00:40:40,748 --> 00:40:42,336 there's no indication that he really understood 818 00:40:42,370 --> 00:40:43,889 why they were so offended. 819 00:40:43,924 --> 00:40:45,684 How can be so blind? 'Cause here he is, 820 00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:47,686 even in these hearings over censorship, 821 00:40:47,721 --> 00:40:50,033 talking to people like William Monroe Trotter, 822 00:40:50,068 --> 00:40:53,312 or, in other instances, Du Bois, brilliant, accomplished men 823 00:40:53,347 --> 00:40:55,867 who shattered the portrayals and the stereotypes 824 00:40:55,901 --> 00:40:57,524 that he has in his film. 825 00:40:57,558 --> 00:40:59,457 Narrator: Through his editorials, 826 00:40:59,491 --> 00:41:01,942 Trotter campaigned heavily for Curley, 827 00:41:01,976 --> 00:41:03,944 helping him win the black vote. 828 00:41:03,978 --> 00:41:06,394 Trotter thinks Curley owes him a favor. 829 00:41:06,429 --> 00:41:08,811 Stokes: Trotter simply tells Curley that, look, 830 00:41:08,845 --> 00:41:11,399 we voted for you last time, but how you do on this 831 00:41:11,434 --> 00:41:13,678 is how we might judge you next time. 832 00:41:13,712 --> 00:41:15,369 Narrator: Unlike Trotter, 833 00:41:15,403 --> 00:41:17,682 Griffith has the backing of the White House. 834 00:41:17,716 --> 00:41:21,271 He is confident Curley will not ban his film. 835 00:41:21,306 --> 00:41:23,273 Lehr: Curley, at the end of the hearing, 836 00:41:23,308 --> 00:41:26,345 asked Griffith if he would voluntarily trim 837 00:41:26,380 --> 00:41:28,451 one of the most controversial scenes, 838 00:41:28,486 --> 00:41:30,315 the so-called Gus chase scene. 839 00:41:30,349 --> 00:41:33,387 When it came to these sort of race hot-button moments, 840 00:41:33,421 --> 00:41:34,802 he would tinker with it, trim a little bit, 841 00:41:34,837 --> 00:41:36,873 and then put it back, but the bottom line is 842 00:41:36,908 --> 00:41:40,498 that there were no substantive changes to the work. 843 00:41:41,844 --> 00:41:44,122 Scott: We have these horrifying scenes 844 00:41:44,156 --> 00:41:46,780 that even still today play as horrifying. 845 00:41:46,814 --> 00:41:49,921 Gus has almost raped little sister Flora. 846 00:41:49,955 --> 00:41:53,096 She's gone off the cliff, and it's this very dramatic moment. 847 00:41:57,653 --> 00:41:59,827 Scott: There's a trial by the KKK, 848 00:41:59,862 --> 00:42:02,830 and they decide that he's guilty. 849 00:42:02,865 --> 00:42:05,453 Even though there's years and years separating us, 850 00:42:05,488 --> 00:42:09,527 you can still see why this is such a horrifying moment. 851 00:42:12,633 --> 00:42:15,671 Lehr: Griffith's view in going to Boston and defending the film 852 00:42:15,705 --> 00:42:18,605 had a couple of elements to it. First of all, he was convinced 853 00:42:18,639 --> 00:42:20,572 that it was historically accurate. 854 00:42:20,607 --> 00:42:23,748 The other big argument was that as he became 855 00:42:23,782 --> 00:42:25,991 America's pioneering film director, 856 00:42:26,026 --> 00:42:28,166 he was elevating the medium to art 857 00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:31,065 and warrants First Amendment protection as free expression. 858 00:42:31,100 --> 00:42:33,999 The First Amendment back then, it didn't truly extend 859 00:42:34,034 --> 00:42:37,520 to arts and culture in the way that we know it today. 860 00:42:37,555 --> 00:42:39,522 Cobb: D.W. Griffith proposes 861 00:42:39,557 --> 00:42:41,524 this kind of inverted victimhood. 862 00:42:41,559 --> 00:42:43,457 Out of that, he becomes convinced 863 00:42:43,491 --> 00:42:46,771 that his rights to free speech are being curtailed. 864 00:42:46,805 --> 00:42:48,773 He produces this pamphlet, 865 00:42:48,807 --> 00:42:51,465 "The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America." 866 00:42:51,499 --> 00:42:53,709 He is completely oblivious 867 00:42:53,743 --> 00:42:56,574 that his work has been complicit in curtailing 868 00:42:56,608 --> 00:43:00,612 the very right to live among a whole other set of people. 869 00:43:02,027 --> 00:43:05,341 Certainly, on the scale of who is in jeopardy here, 870 00:43:05,375 --> 00:43:08,378 it is not D.W. Griffith. 871 00:43:13,176 --> 00:43:15,213 Narrator: Frustrated by his failure 872 00:43:15,247 --> 00:43:17,905 to obtain City Hall's legal sanctions, 873 00:43:17,940 --> 00:43:21,840 Trotter prepares for direct action in the streets. 874 00:43:21,875 --> 00:43:24,602 Man, as Trotter: The policy of compromise has failed. 875 00:43:24,636 --> 00:43:29,158 The policy of agitation and resistance deserves a trial. 876 00:43:29,192 --> 00:43:31,436 Lehr: The Boston protest was multi-pronged; 877 00:43:31,470 --> 00:43:34,266 Trotter and local leaders of the NAACP, 878 00:43:34,301 --> 00:43:36,648 they went down to the theater. 879 00:43:36,683 --> 00:43:39,996 The ticket office was discriminating in ticket sales 880 00:43:40,031 --> 00:43:42,481 and wasn't selling tickets to blacks who were curious 881 00:43:42,516 --> 00:43:43,966 and wanted to see the movie. 882 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,658 Word got out. Police superintendent had more 883 00:43:46,693 --> 00:43:49,316 than a hundred uniformed officers stationed nearby 884 00:43:49,350 --> 00:43:51,283 and out of sight around the corner. 885 00:43:51,318 --> 00:43:54,183 A little after 7:00, Trotter comes marching in, 886 00:43:54,217 --> 00:43:57,013 and he's with dozens and dozens of supporters. 887 00:43:57,048 --> 00:43:59,084 Trotter and his contingent, 888 00:43:59,119 --> 00:44:02,018 they go into the lobby and try to get a ticket. 889 00:44:02,053 --> 00:44:05,504 Trotter demands a ticket, one of the officers 890 00:44:05,539 --> 00:44:08,197 in plain clothes, he sucker-punches Trotter. 891 00:44:08,231 --> 00:44:11,510 Trotter placed under arrest and dragged out of the lobby. 892 00:44:11,545 --> 00:44:13,581 [Shouting] 893 00:44:13,616 --> 00:44:15,445 Narrator: But some of Trotter's followers manage 894 00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:19,070 to sneak into the theater, and the screening turns ugly. 895 00:44:19,104 --> 00:44:22,590 Boos and hisses grow louder, until finally, 896 00:44:22,625 --> 00:44:26,525 eggs fly from the audience and splatter across the screen. 897 00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,736 Lehr: There are several thousand protestors turning out 898 00:44:29,770 --> 00:44:31,807 in Boston Common against this movie. 899 00:44:31,841 --> 00:44:34,844 On this particular night, they're at the movie theater. 900 00:44:34,879 --> 00:44:36,743 On another day, they're marching to the State House 901 00:44:36,777 --> 00:44:38,779 to appeal to the governor to intervene. 902 00:44:38,814 --> 00:44:41,230 It's the kind of thing that you end up scratching your head 903 00:44:41,264 --> 00:44:43,163 and going, "What year is this? 904 00:44:43,197 --> 00:44:46,476 1915? This is so 1960-ish." 905 00:44:47,961 --> 00:44:50,446 And yet here it is, Monroe Trotter at the forefront 906 00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:53,000 of this mass demonstration and protest 907 00:44:53,035 --> 00:44:54,588 that the journalists are writing about. 908 00:44:54,622 --> 00:44:56,832 They hadn't seen anything like this. 909 00:44:56,866 --> 00:45:00,180 Narrator: News of the Boston protest and Trotter's arrest 910 00:45:00,214 --> 00:45:01,629 is reported in cities 911 00:45:01,664 --> 00:45:03,701 all across the country. 912 00:45:03,735 --> 00:45:06,117 Following his release from jail, 913 00:45:06,151 --> 00:45:08,636 Trotter galvanizes support 914 00:45:08,671 --> 00:45:13,158 and electrifies the crowd with a speech at Faneuil Hall. 915 00:45:13,193 --> 00:45:15,678 Man, as Trotter: If there is any lynching here in Boston, 916 00:45:15,713 --> 00:45:17,991 Mayor Curley will be responsible. 917 00:45:18,025 --> 00:45:20,165 Narrator: The excitement of protest builds 918 00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:23,651 as Trotter leads a march on the State House. 919 00:45:23,686 --> 00:45:26,137 Cathcart: 3,000 African-Americans 920 00:45:26,171 --> 00:45:29,071 are walking up those tight streets of Beacon Hill... 921 00:45:29,105 --> 00:45:30,520 [People singing] 922 00:45:30,555 --> 00:45:32,522 singing hymns. 923 00:45:32,557 --> 00:45:35,318 Narrator: One of the protestors remembers the moment. 924 00:45:35,353 --> 00:45:39,529 Man: I look over the vast crowd of Negro men and women, 925 00:45:39,564 --> 00:45:43,602 and the thought came to me, this is a united people, 926 00:45:43,637 --> 00:45:47,641 and although in the minority now, they're going to win. 927 00:45:47,675 --> 00:45:50,126 All the black leaders coming together-- 928 00:45:50,161 --> 00:45:52,301 Washington, Du Bois, Trotter-- 929 00:45:52,335 --> 00:45:54,648 forgetting their differences. 930 00:45:54,682 --> 00:45:58,134 10 million Negroes would be united. 931 00:45:58,169 --> 00:46:01,137 A nation would really be born. 932 00:46:01,172 --> 00:46:02,414 [Bell chimes] 933 00:46:02,449 --> 00:46:04,520 Narrator: Trotter appealed to the governor, 934 00:46:04,554 --> 00:46:07,385 who backs Trotter's bid to amend the censorship law 935 00:46:07,419 --> 00:46:10,526 and take sole power away from Mayor Curley. 936 00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,184 They are confident they can line up two votes 937 00:46:13,218 --> 00:46:16,981 on the new three-person board to ban the film. 938 00:46:17,015 --> 00:46:19,466 Massive street protests continue 939 00:46:19,500 --> 00:46:22,814 as Trotter and his supporters pack the State House. 940 00:46:22,849 --> 00:46:25,886 Stokes: Trotter is designing the kind of campaign 941 00:46:25,921 --> 00:46:28,578 of civil protest and disobedience 942 00:46:28,613 --> 00:46:30,511 which is going to take off in the 20th century 943 00:46:30,546 --> 00:46:32,306 in the long Civil Rights movement. 944 00:46:33,514 --> 00:46:36,103 Narrator: After 3 weeks of mounting tension 945 00:46:36,138 --> 00:46:39,210 and packed rallies, the new censorship board 946 00:46:39,244 --> 00:46:42,282 retires behind closed doors. 947 00:46:42,316 --> 00:46:44,525 To the protestors' dismay, 948 00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:48,460 Curley alone emerges to read a curt statement. 949 00:46:48,495 --> 00:46:50,842 The license of the theater 950 00:46:50,877 --> 00:46:53,396 should not be revoked or suspended. 951 00:46:53,431 --> 00:46:57,469 The film will play in Boston. 952 00:46:57,504 --> 00:47:00,748 Gates: What Trotter did was to show that mass mobilization 953 00:47:00,783 --> 00:47:04,683 was possible, that black people were a coherent group, 954 00:47:04,718 --> 00:47:08,308 they could get angry about demeaning images being shown. 955 00:47:08,342 --> 00:47:10,862 But unfortunately, everything they did seemed 956 00:47:10,897 --> 00:47:14,866 to only create larger audiences for "Birth of a Nation." 957 00:47:14,901 --> 00:47:16,868 They did the right thing. 958 00:47:16,903 --> 00:47:19,802 They had to voice protests against this vile, 959 00:47:19,837 --> 00:47:21,873 racist work of art. 960 00:47:21,908 --> 00:47:23,564 You can't censor. 961 00:47:23,599 --> 00:47:26,015 It was never going to work, and it didn't work. 962 00:47:30,330 --> 00:47:32,297 Bellinger: At the close of the film, 963 00:47:32,332 --> 00:47:35,300 the Ku Klux Klan is presented as the heroes. 964 00:47:35,335 --> 00:47:37,233 They are the saviors, 965 00:47:37,268 --> 00:47:39,822 the ones who come riding to the rescue. 966 00:47:39,857 --> 00:47:41,928 Great piece of propaganda. 967 00:47:41,962 --> 00:47:45,655 Lehr: Trotter's worries did come true in early December 1915 968 00:47:45,690 --> 00:47:47,761 when it did open and was shown in Atlanta, Georgia. 969 00:47:47,795 --> 00:47:50,522 It inspired the rebirth of the Klan. 970 00:47:50,557 --> 00:47:52,455 Within days, on Stone Mountain, 971 00:47:52,490 --> 00:47:55,389 a new Klan came together, burned a cross. 972 00:47:55,424 --> 00:47:58,392 William J. Simmons, who was the leader of that outfit, 973 00:47:58,427 --> 00:48:00,498 later wrote about how the movie inspired him 974 00:48:00,532 --> 00:48:02,155 to--to act that way. 975 00:48:02,189 --> 00:48:03,846 By the 1920s, 976 00:48:03,881 --> 00:48:07,850 the Ku Klux Klan was larger than it had ever been before, 977 00:48:07,885 --> 00:48:10,404 larger than it ever would be after. 978 00:48:10,439 --> 00:48:13,476 They even had a march in Washington. 979 00:48:13,511 --> 00:48:16,410 They were in full regalia, but their faces weren't covered, 980 00:48:16,445 --> 00:48:19,897 so the anonymity which was a hallmark 981 00:48:19,931 --> 00:48:22,382 of the Klan was not even necessary. 982 00:48:22,416 --> 00:48:24,902 Brown: I think the real tragedy of "Birth of a Nation" 983 00:48:24,936 --> 00:48:27,042 is that it really was a great film. 984 00:48:27,076 --> 00:48:29,907 It was a huge, spectacular film. 985 00:48:31,460 --> 00:48:34,325 And I don't think that we can look at our history truthfully 986 00:48:34,359 --> 00:48:36,879 unless we acknowledge that some of our greatest 987 00:48:36,914 --> 00:48:40,124 cultural products have also been some of our worst. 988 00:48:41,470 --> 00:48:45,370 Spectacular and great things are done with evil intent 989 00:48:45,405 --> 00:48:49,581 and have evil effects, but that's just part of history. 990 00:48:49,616 --> 00:48:51,929 If we want to really look at history and not just 991 00:48:51,963 --> 00:48:54,172 fantasize about what our history should have been 992 00:48:54,207 --> 00:48:57,072 in the way that Thomas Dixon did and D.W. Griffith did, 993 00:48:57,106 --> 00:48:59,143 then we have to acknowledge even the parts 994 00:48:59,177 --> 00:49:01,110 of history we don't like. 995 00:49:01,145 --> 00:49:03,423 It would be silly not to recognize D.W. Griffith 996 00:49:03,457 --> 00:49:07,599 as a great filmmaker simply because he made a racist film. 997 00:49:07,634 --> 00:49:09,670 Well, racism is racism, I mean, 998 00:49:09,705 --> 00:49:11,776 no matter what form it is; 999 00:49:11,810 --> 00:49:14,434 whether it be, uh, Al Jolson 1000 00:49:14,468 --> 00:49:17,402 in blackface in "The Jazz Singer," 1001 00:49:17,437 --> 00:49:20,405 "Birth of a Nation." 1002 00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:22,787 And you know it when you see it. 1003 00:49:22,821 --> 00:49:25,755 So it's just different forms, and it's been slicktified 1004 00:49:25,790 --> 00:49:28,758 and hidden, but it's there. 1005 00:49:28,793 --> 00:49:31,796 Even though they might want to call him the father of cinema, 1006 00:49:31,830 --> 00:49:34,143 well, call him "racist father of cinema." 1007 00:49:34,178 --> 00:49:37,595 "Father of racist cinema"-- that's even better. 1008 00:49:37,629 --> 00:49:40,046 Hudlin: The most dangerous thing 1009 00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:44,740 about "Birth of a Nation" was its huge financial success, 1010 00:49:44,774 --> 00:49:49,745 because, at the end of the day, Hollywood works on precedent. 1011 00:49:49,779 --> 00:49:52,161 Whether people know better or not, they're going to go back 1012 00:49:52,196 --> 00:49:56,165 to tropes that they feel are associated with success. 1013 00:49:56,200 --> 00:50:00,998 You have "Birth of a Nation," which is very successful, 1014 00:50:01,032 --> 00:50:03,828 and you go, OK, America loves racism. 1015 00:50:03,862 --> 00:50:07,314 They will pay money to see racism on-screen. 1016 00:50:07,349 --> 00:50:10,110 Then you have "Gone with the Wind," 1017 00:50:10,145 --> 00:50:12,147 which has the same racist tropes. 1018 00:50:14,114 --> 00:50:16,082 Bam! That becomes a huge success. 1019 00:50:16,116 --> 00:50:18,601 "I knew it! This racism thing works!" 1020 00:50:18,636 --> 00:50:21,052 Those same ideas keep repeating 1021 00:50:21,087 --> 00:50:23,606 through the entire history of cinema. 1022 00:50:23,641 --> 00:50:28,094 Narrator: The NAACP recognizes the importance of fighting back, 1023 00:50:28,128 --> 00:50:30,130 but fail to make their own film 1024 00:50:30,165 --> 00:50:33,651 countering the racist ideas of "Birth of a Nation." 1025 00:50:33,685 --> 00:50:36,309 It would be left to the independent black filmmaker 1026 00:50:36,343 --> 00:50:40,899 Oscar Micheaux to produce and direct "Within Our Gates," 1027 00:50:40,934 --> 00:50:45,042 an answer to the negative stereotypes in Griffith's film. 1028 00:50:45,076 --> 00:50:46,905 Charlene Regester: When Micheaux made his film, 1029 00:50:46,940 --> 00:50:49,529 he showed a black family who were being lynched, 1030 00:50:49,563 --> 00:50:52,359 cross-cut with their daughter, 1031 00:50:52,394 --> 00:50:54,499 who was a mulatto woman, 1032 00:50:54,534 --> 00:50:57,709 who was being attacked by a white male. 1033 00:50:57,744 --> 00:51:00,264 Narrator: Ironically, many cities that exhibited 1034 00:51:00,298 --> 00:51:03,060 "The Birth of a Nation" censor Micheaux's film 1035 00:51:03,094 --> 00:51:06,166 for fear it will incite racial violence. 1036 00:51:06,201 --> 00:51:09,204 Regester: The legacy of "Birth of a Nation" 1037 00:51:09,238 --> 00:51:12,103 is that at least it canonizes, 1038 00:51:12,138 --> 00:51:16,107 to some extent, black resistance to cinema 1039 00:51:16,142 --> 00:51:19,041 that many African-Americans found to be offensive. 1040 00:51:19,076 --> 00:51:22,148 One significant thing about the battle against 1041 00:51:22,182 --> 00:51:27,118 "Birth of a Nation" is that it was a two-pronged attack, 1042 00:51:27,153 --> 00:51:31,985 both in terms of trying to get changes in the legislative process 1043 00:51:32,019 --> 00:51:35,230 to legally ban the film or censor it, and also 1044 00:51:35,264 --> 00:51:38,647 the direct-action approach-- taking to the streets. 1045 00:51:38,681 --> 00:51:41,581 Those two approaches continued, I think, 1046 00:51:41,615 --> 00:51:44,653 to be part of the Civil Rights movement. 1047 00:51:44,687 --> 00:51:47,242 Lehr: This movie that was so controversial became 1048 00:51:47,276 --> 00:51:49,658 an organizing vehicle for what became the nation's 1049 00:51:49,692 --> 00:51:51,798 most prominent Civil Rights organization. 1050 00:51:51,832 --> 00:51:53,800 But Trotter was not on that train. 1051 00:51:53,834 --> 00:51:56,630 He had a fundamental philosophical difference 1052 00:51:56,665 --> 00:51:59,599 with the NAACP that boiled down to this-- 1053 00:51:59,633 --> 00:52:02,153 in those early years, the NAACP, 1054 00:52:02,188 --> 00:52:05,087 the top officers were white men, and it was Trotter's view 1055 00:52:05,122 --> 00:52:08,228 that a civil rights organization for the advancement 1056 00:52:08,263 --> 00:52:12,646 of black America had to be run by blacks. 1057 00:52:12,681 --> 00:52:15,891 Narrator: As "Birth of a Nation" steamrolls the country, 1058 00:52:15,925 --> 00:52:18,065 Booker T. Washington dies. 1059 00:52:18,100 --> 00:52:20,413 Although the mantle of civil rights leadership 1060 00:52:20,447 --> 00:52:25,314 passes directly to W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP, 1061 00:52:25,349 --> 00:52:27,178 it is William Monroe Trotter 1062 00:52:27,213 --> 00:52:30,147 who laid the foundation stone for the battle 1063 00:52:30,181 --> 00:52:33,080 for the modern Civil Rights Movement to come. 1064 00:52:33,115 --> 00:52:37,637 Gates: William Monroe Trotter was a necessary element 1065 00:52:37,671 --> 00:52:41,882 in the radicalization of the American Negro leadership. 1066 00:52:41,917 --> 00:52:44,885 Even in the motto for his newspaper: 1067 00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:48,510 "For every right," comma, "with all thy might." 1068 00:52:48,544 --> 00:52:50,512 Trotter was edgy, 1069 00:52:50,546 --> 00:52:54,067 and he lived on that edge and he died on that edge. 1070 00:52:54,101 --> 00:52:58,071 Cathcart: Trotter begins to spiral out of control 1071 00:52:58,105 --> 00:53:00,901 after Deenie dies of the Spanish flu. 1072 00:53:00,936 --> 00:53:03,352 Deenie was really everything to him. 1073 00:53:03,387 --> 00:53:06,217 She was really instrumental in keeping the newspaper going. 1074 00:53:06,252 --> 00:53:07,736 [Bell tolling] 1075 00:53:07,770 --> 00:53:10,739 I can only imagine he looked back on his life, 1076 00:53:10,773 --> 00:53:14,777 and what he had hoped never really came to be 1077 00:53:14,812 --> 00:53:17,055 and wouldn't for decades. 1078 00:53:17,090 --> 00:53:21,543 Man: ♪ O, Glory, Glory 1079 00:53:21,577 --> 00:53:23,821 Choir: ♪ Glory, Hallelujah... 1080 00:53:23,855 --> 00:53:26,824 Narrator: William Monroe Trotter had earned the respect 1081 00:53:26,858 --> 00:53:30,724 of many of those he'd befriended and battled. 1082 00:53:30,759 --> 00:53:36,213 W.E.B. Du Bois would say of his old university companion, 1083 00:53:36,247 --> 00:53:40,286 "Monroe Trotter was a man of historic proportion, 1084 00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:42,805 "ready to sacrifice himself, 1085 00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:45,360 "fearing nobody and nothing. 1086 00:53:45,394 --> 00:53:48,294 "Strong in body, sturdy in conviction, 1087 00:53:48,328 --> 00:53:51,297 full of unbending belief." 1088 00:53:51,331 --> 00:53:54,265 [Hymn ends, bell tolls] 1089 00:53:55,305 --> 00:54:55,603 Support us and become VIP member to remove all ads from www.OpenSubtitles.org