Film/TV

The Birth of a Nation

1915

Associated Ideas, People, and Places

Explainer

How Oscar Micheaux Challenged the Racism of Early Hollywood

The black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux was one of the first to make films for a black audience, a rebuke to racist movies like "The Birth of a Nation."

by Anna Siomopoulos, Kristin Hunt, Richard Grupenhoff via JSTOR Daily on October 3, 2019
Media Criticism

“A Public Menace”

How the fight to ban "The Birth of a Nation" shaped the nascent civil rights movement.

by Dorian Lynskey via Slate on March 31, 2015

Viewing 1–9 of 9

Movie poster of The Birth of a Nation depicting a Ku Klux Klan member as a knight.

How the Work of Thomas Dixon Shaped White America’s Racist Fantasies

On the literary and cinematic legacy of white supremacy in the United States.

by Joel Edward Goza via Literary Hub on September 23, 2024

Mocking the Klan

Was cartoonist Billy Ireland’s pen really mightier than the burning crosses of the KKK?

by Eliya Smith via The Baffler on August 11, 2021

Still from "Apocolypse Now"

How a Wagner Opera Defined the Sound of Hollywood Blockbusters

“Ride of the Valkyries” has been featured in hundreds of films, including 'The Birth of a Nation,' 'Jarhead,' and most famously, Apocalypse Now.'

by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on September 15, 2020

Robert Smalls

What Woodrow Wilson Did to Robert Smalls

We all know, in the abstract, that Wilson was a white supremacist. But here’s how he wielded his racism against one accomplished Black American.

by Aderson François via The New Republic on July 3, 2020

Protester at an "America First" rally.

The Great-Granddaddy of White Nationalism

Thomas Dixon’s racist discourse lurks in American politics and society even today.

by Diane Roberts via Southern Cultures on September 18, 2019

A scene from Birth of a Nation.

Births of a Nation

Cedric Robinson has a great deal to teach us about Trumpism and the significance of resistance in determining the future.

by Robin D. G. Kelley via Boston Review on March 6, 2017

KKK march in Washington in 1925.

When Bigotry Paraded Through the Streets

A century ago, millions of Americans banded together to reform the KKK, the rest turned a blind eye.

by Joshua D. Rothman via The Atlantic on December 4, 2016

How the Klan Got Its Hood

Members of the Ku Klux Klan did not wear their distinctive white uniform until Hollywood—and a mail-order catalog—intervened.

by Alison Kinney via The New Republic on January 8, 2016

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson Was Extremely Racist — Even By the Standards of His Time

He called black people "an ignorant and inferior race," and it gets worse.

by Dylan Matthews via Vox on November 20, 2015

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