After viewing the first half of Birth of a Movement, which real world events do think were caused (at least in part) by scientific racism and Jim Crow laws?
- Birth of Nation becomes flash point that starts the American Civil Rights Movement
- while Birth of a Nation is extremely racist, it was the most honest, pure though of the time
- Birth of a Movement- the battle against America’s first blockbuster film
- Boston is the birthplace of freedom- a magnet for skilled African American workers, activists for those in their own towns
- Trotter Massachusetts, offspring of white master and black mistress
- Trotter moves to Southern Ohio, free state and moves for freedom
- Trotter looms in the mind of his son, be the best one can be
- Trotter is in a all white school and VD of high school, goes to Harvard
- Trotter’s fellow black student at Harvard is DeBois
- the two believed their fate depended upon rise of all African Americans
- Griffith born 10 years are Civil War, his family considered white trash in the South
- Griffith ten years old, father dies and family is in poverty
- after civil war- people can now travel the world together and thats what actors were doing together and learning to be an actor and play writer- Griffith as well doing this
- Plessy v Ferguson 1896 at this time the film came out- AA leadership is undergoing change
- before segregation started, Trotter only experienced the best of America (before PvF) and got out of his harvard bubble and saw segregation closing in on Boston
- as a filmmaker, Griffith wanted a reaction and to get audience to identify what they saw on screen and feel fear and teror
- federal agencies before segregated- corporate buildings under Woodrow Wilson
- friend tells Griffith about ‘The Clansman” book by Dixon
- the most dangerous in the film is the mid-breed, intelligence of white man, brutality of black man
- Wilson, Griffith and Dixon were all children of reconstruction
- 3 hour drama that portrays blacks as beast, and everyone in White House thought it was a brilliant piece of work
- Griffith uses a quote from Wilson’s book “The American People…” in his movie
- movie inspired the Klan to continue
- Griffith named “father of racist cinema
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