Who Is The Birth Of A Nation Villainize African Americans?

In what ways did “The Birth of a Nation” villainize African Americans? In 1915, D. W. Griffith’s bigoted film, The Birth of a Nation, premiered. This landmark film sought to retell the era of the civil war and subsequent reconstruction era through the lens of anti-black sentiment. The Birth of a Nation was America’s first full-length feature film and gained immediate success across the nation. Additionally, this successful piece of media was used to indoctrinate people into the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K). This essay seeks to examine the influence The Birth of a Nation had on the perception of African Americans in the United States of America. The Birth of a Nation romanticized the first iteration of the K.K.K. as preserving the South’s honor against …show more content…

Despite the apparent racist themes of the movie, the cinematography was notable. With what it was able to accomplish artistically, The Birth of a Nation was at the forefront of modern technology. Between the debut in 1915 and 1946, the film was able to amass 200,000,000 viewers. The popularity that the film garnered even had President Woodrow Wilson have a private viewing at the White House. However, the overt prejudiced tones of the film not only lead to the villainization of African Americans, but also to the praise of the Ku Klux Klan. The K. K. K. is a far-right terrorist organization that subscribes to and advocates for the principles of white supremacy; they use the teachings of the Catholic Church to justify their sentiments. William Joseph Simmons utilized the success the film had in its premiere in Georgia and chartered the second phase of the Ku Klux Klan on December 6, 1915. The Klan saw a resurgence in the 1920s with the help of Simmons. Simmions later became the Ku Klux Klan’s “Grand Wizard”, the leader of the organization. The anti-black sentiment is clearly recognizable in The Birth of a Nation. The film is split into two parts: the civil war and the reconstruction