National

‘Birth of a Nation’ — 100 Years On, Debate on Film Endures

Published

11 years ago

February 13, 2015

This 1914 file photo shows a scene from D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” movie depicting Ku Klux Klan members riding horses against soldiers, filmed in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo)

HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — One hundred years ago this spring, Hollywood came of age in a blaze of wonder and fury.

D.W. Griffith’s three-hour Civil War epic, “The Birth of a Nation,” was released in April 1915 after a special showing in March at President Woodrow Wilson’s White House. It is widely recognized as a blueprint for the feature-length movie and as a showcase for Griffith’s Tolstoyan command of historical narrative, from the battlefield to the front porch.

But one of the greatest glories in movie history is also one of its lasting shames. Within Griffith’s lovingly assembled images is a story that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, demonized blacks and sealed the misconception that the Reconstruction era in the South was a disastrous experiment in racial equality.

So now, at the film’s centennial, an industry that loves and thrives on honoring its past may allow one of its defining moments to go largely unobserved.

Turner Classic Movies, one of the prime outlets for silent cinema, is uncertain how or whether to mark the anniversary, said Charles Tabesh, senior vice president.

“It’s not just something you can put in the schedule,” he said. TCM has occasionally aired the film, which is in the public domain, but he explained, “We’ve provided an introduction and explained why it’s on, but even with that, we’ve gotten responses ranging from minor complaints to a lot of people who were really upset about it. It’s difficult because for a channel like Turner Classic Movies you can’t just avoid it. It wouldn’t be appropriate to pretend it was never made.”

No film before had so forcefully, or painfully, demonstrated that the big screen could challenge the novel and textbook as a way of interpreting and thinking about the past. James Baldwin would damn it as “an elaborate justification of mass murder.” Eric Foner, a leading Reconstruction historian, said in a recent interview that the film did “irreparable damage to public consciousness and also to race relations.” Fellow scholar Annette Gordon-Reed calls Griffith both a genius and a “lousy historian.”

Over the past quarter century, “Birth of a Nation” has been enshrined and entombed.

In 1992, to much criticism, the Library of Congress added Griffith’s work to the National Film Registry, calling it a “controversial, explicitly racist, but landmark American film masterpiece.” For decades, the Directors Guild of America awarded a D.W. Griffith Award for lifetime achievement, but dropped the prize in 1999 to “create a new ultimate honor for film directors that better reflects the sensibilities of our society at this time in our national history.”

In 1998, the American Film Institute listed “Birth of a Nation” at No. 44 on a list of the best 100 American movies. The film does not appear on a 2007 AFI “Best 100” list, which instead features “Intolerance,” Griffith’s atonement for “Birth.” A planned screening in 2004 at a Los Angeles theater was canceled because of protests.

The classroom, the DVD and online are the most likely places to see it now. In 2011, Kino Lorber released a DVD and Blu-Ray edition with a restored print, extensive notes and a brief documentary explaining the film’s context. Kino special projects producer Bret Wood says the company receives occasional complaints for selling the film, but that “Birth of a Nation” is consistently among the most purchased silent movies.

“It’s a difficult thing to do — marketing a cinematic masterpiece that is also hate-mongering propaganda — but that in itself is why the film is so powerful,” Wood wrote in an email. “If it were simply a racist film, it would have faded away long ago. But because ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is such a magnificent film (in terms of cinematic artistry in 1915), the cancerous ideology at its core is all the more toxic, and so we find ourselves continuing to discuss it a full century later.”

Jeanine Basinger, a film historian who teaches at Wesleyan University, says “Birth” is taught in different ways. A history professor might screen excerpts to show how some Americans thought of the Civil War, while a film instructor might focus on the film’s aesthetic achievements.

“In film departments, we aren’t teaching content, we are teaching the medium itself and its development,” Basinger says.

“The Birth of a Nation” is historical drama, but for the director it was something close to emotional autobiography. David Wark Griffith was born in Kentucky in 1875, just a decade after the Civil War ended. His father was a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army, and Griffith grew up in the early Jim Crow era. Although Kentucky was a border state that did not secede and was relatively unaffected by Reconstruction, Griffith related to the source material for “Birth of a Nation,” Thomas Dixon’s novel and play “The Clansman.”

“Griffith did not question the core assumption of Dixon’s story: that blacks, once the supposedly benevolent bonds of slavery had been overthrown, became violent and threatening to whites, especially women,” says Melvyn Stokes, author of “D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.”

He was a man of the late 19th century mastering the tools of a revolutionary medium of the 20th century — moving images. After several years of acting and script writing, he directed his first movie, in 1908. By 1914, Griffith was among the country’s top directors.

“As he refined and developed his filmmaking art, he became ambitious to do longer, more ‘epic’ films,” Stokes said, noting that Griffith had studied the Italian production “Quo Vadis” and a French production, “Queen Elizabeth.”

“He was also keen to produce works like these based on history, since historical subjects were seen as a means of making motion pictures ‘respectable’ and appealing to the more lucrative, middle-class audience.”

In making “Birth of a Nation,” Griffith wedded mass spectacle and groundbreaking art and helped change forever the role of movies and what they could achieve.

Earlier films often lasted less than an hour and were completed within days. “Birth of a Nation” took six months to produce, had a running time of 195 minutes and employed hundreds of actors. Griffith’s epic also helped popularize such techniques as the panoramic shot, the panning shot and the tinting of the lens. The battlefield scenes, still compelling in their momentum and violence, set the template for countless war movies over the following decades. The soundtrack was among the first to feature a popular theme song.

The film made history before reaching theaters. In March 1915, “Birth of a Nation” became the first moving picture to be screened at the White House, then occupied by Wilson, Thomas Dixon’s former Johns Hopkins University classmate and fellow Southerner.

The White House event resulted in one of film’s most famous blurbs. “It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true,” Wilson was supposed to have commented. Biographer A. Scott Berg is almost certain he never said it.

“The line does not appear for decades — not even in Dixon’s unpublished memoirs,” Berg wrote in an email, adding that Wilson was known for his reactionary views on race. “I suspect that it got cobbled together as civil rights became more of an issue and people looked back on ‘Birth of a Nation,’ seeing it through new and more enlightened eyes. And, as Wilson’s stock in the area of civil rights sank, it became an easy quotation to attribute to him.”

Virtually everything about “Birth of a Nation” was outsized and new. Moviegoers were charged $2 a ticket (around $46 in 2015) at a time when you could see an afternoon of comedy shorts for pennies. The film helped mark the transition from nickelodeons to gilded movie “palaces.” The cast included some of the greatest directors of the talking era, among them Raoul Walsh (who played John Wilkes Booth) and John Ford (who played a Klansman).

In theaters, whites reveled and rampaged. In Lafayette, Indiana, a white man killed a black teen after seeing the movie. The Ku Klux Klan used the film for decades to recruit members.

The NAACP, founded just a few years earlier, demanded that a few especially racist scenes be deleted and despaired over the damage.

“The harm it is doing the colored people cannot be estimated,” wrote the association’s secretary, Mary Childs Nerney. “I hear echoes of it wherever I go and have no doubt that this was in the mind of the people who are producing it. Their profits here are something like $14,000 a day and their expenses about $400.”

His influence acknowledged even by his detractors, Griffith was revered by Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick, among others. Leading critics have praised “Birth of a Nation’ on artistic grounds, and even moral grounds. Roger Ebert wrote that Griffith “demonstrated to every filmmaker and moviegoer who followed him what a movie was, and what a movie could be.” James Agee, mourning Griffith’s death in 1948, wrote: “For all its imperfections and absurdities it is equal, in fact, to the best work that has been done in this country. And among moving pictures it is alone…”

The Tennessee-born Agee lamented that criticism of the movie had led to its being restricted, or abridged. “At best, this is nonsense, and at worst, it is vicious nonsense. Even if it were an anti-Negro movie, a work of such quality should be shown, and shown whole. But the accusation is unjust. Griffith went to almost preposterous lengths to be fair to the Negroes as he understood them, and he understood them as a good type of Southerner does.”

Black filmmakers responded forcefully to “Birth of a Nation,” and across generations. In 1919, Oscar Micheaux made “Within Our Gates,” a blunt portrait of white violence and among the earliest surviving movies by a black director. In 1980, Spike Lee was a film major at New York University when he completed the 20-minute “The Answer,” in which a young black screenwriter is asked by a Hollywood studio to turn out a script for a remake of “Birth of a Nation.”

Paul D. Miller, aka the hip-hop and performance artist DJ Spooky, saw “Birth of a Nation” while attending Bowdoin College and recalled how it echoed in his mind “because of so many of the issues that keep resurfacing in American culture.” In 2004, DJ Spooky premiered “Rebirth of a Nation,” a multimedia stage event and later a film that remixed excerpts from Griffith’s movie with contemporary images, music and commentary.

Miller finds “Birth of a Nation” so influential, technically and aesthetically, he even thought about it while designing his iPad app.

“As much as possible I want to think about mobile media as the inheritors of the cinematic imaginary,” he wrote in an email. “Cell phones, tablets, and other portable media have set the stage for a new kind of multimedia experience. ‘Birth of a Nation’ set the tone for that as well.”

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COMMENTARY: Jim Crow 2.0 at the Pentagon

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The American people are expected to believe that one extraordinary officer after another suddenly fails to meet some undefined standard of excellence. We are expected to ignore impeccable service records while accepting that political appointees alone possess the wisdom to determine who is worthy of advancement.

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August 3, 2026

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Pete Hegseth insists that he is restoring “merit” to the United States military. But after months of dismissals, blocked promotions, and ideological purges, the evidence tells a different story. His campaign against so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has become something far more dangerous: an assault on equal opportunity that falls with particular force on African Americans, while also targeting women, Latinos, gay Americans, and transgender service members.

The latest example is both troubling and infuriating.

Once again, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly blocked the promotion of an exceptionally qualified woman—Rear Admiral Amy Bauernschmidt. Bauernschmidt is no ordinary officer. She became the Navy’s first woman to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, one of the most demanding leadership assignments in the world. Her career reflects decades of exemplary performance, operational excellence, and leadership under extraordinary pressure.

Yet once again, a distinguished military career appears to have been subordinated to an ideological agenda masquerading as “merit.”

I call BS!

The American people are expected to believe that one extraordinary officer after another suddenly fails to meet some undefined standard of excellence. We are expected to ignore impeccable service records while accepting that political appointees alone possess the wisdom to determine who is worthy of advancement.

The pattern has become impossible to ignore.

General Charles Q. Brown Jr., only the second African American to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was dismissed despite a career that placed him among the most accomplished military leaders of his generation.

Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman ever to serve as Chief of Naval Operations, was removed despite decades of distinguished command experience.

Reports have documented interventions that blocked or delayed the promotions of Black officers and women selected through the military’s rigorous promotion system.

Now Rear Admiral Amy Bauernschmidt joins the growing list of highly accomplished officers whose careers have been derailed for reasons that have never been persuasively explained.

Where is Congress?

Its silence has become deafening.

Congress has an independent constitutional responsibility to oversee the armed forces. Instead, too many lawmakers have watched silently while one of the nation’s most respected institutions is subjected to ideological litmus tests and political interference.

This is not military reform. It is testosterone-fueled performative masculinity disguised as a philosophy of military excellence.

The irony is impossible to miss. Hegseth repeatedly invokes “merit,” yet his rhetoric begins with the assumption that Black officers, women, and other historically excluded Americans must somehow justify their achievements in ways that white male officers are rarely required to do.

That is not meritocracy. It is prejudice wrapped in patriotic language.

No one is asking that anyone be promoted because of race or gender. Americans simply expect that promotions be based on demonstrated competence, leadership, integrity, and service. The officers being targeted have already proven themselves repeatedly under one of the world’s most demanding evaluation systems.

Their records speak for themselves.

The attack on African American military leadership has been especially pernicious.

For generations, Black Americans fought in segregated units, earned decorations while denied equal treatment, and repeatedly demonstrated loyalty to a nation that often failed to extend them full citizenship. They broke barriers not because standards were lowered but because excellence finally overcame institutional discrimination.

Today’s campaign against “diversity” threatens to revive old assumptions under new slogans.

The implication that Black generals and admirals somehow owe their success to affirmative action rather than extraordinary performance echoes some of the ugliest stereotypes of the Jim Crow era. Yesterday’s segregationists claimed Black Americans were inherently less qualified. Today’s culture warriors simply employ more politically acceptable language while inviting the same suspicion about Black achievement.

That is why Hegseth’s campaign increasingly resembles Jim Crow 2.0.

The targets may now wear stars on their shoulders instead of military patches on segregated uniforms, but the underlying message is hauntingly familiar: Black excellence is presumed suspect, while white excellence is presumed earned.

America’s military became the finest fighting force in history because it opened its doors to talent wherever it could be found. It grew stronger after President Truman desegregated the armed forces. It became stronger when women assumed greater command responsibilities. It became stronger when every qualified American was given the opportunity to serve to the fullest extent of their abilities.

Diversity is not a concession. It is a strategic advantage.

The nation’s adversaries do not fear an American military because it is racially homogeneous. They fear it because it draws upon the talents of more than 340 million Americans whose diverse experiences, perspectives, and abilities make our armed forces unmatched anywhere in the world.

Every politically motivated dismissal of a distinguished officer sends a chilling message throughout the ranks: excellence alone may no longer be enough if you belong to the wrong demographic group.

That weakens morale. It weakens recruitment. It weakens retention.

And ultimately, it weakens national security.

Pete Hegseth has every right to pursue military readiness. He has no right to redefine merit in ways that repeatedly cast suspicion upon the accomplishments of Black officers, women, and others who have devoted their lives to defending this nation.

America deserves better. The men and women who wear the uniform deserve better. The Constitution deserves better.

And unless Congress finds the courage to exercise meaningful oversight, history may well remember this period not as a restoration of military excellence, but as the moment political ideology attempted to resurrect, in modern form, the old poison of exclusion.

Jim Crow did not strengthen America. Jim Crow 2.0 will not strengthen America’s military. It will only diminish it

Wade Henderson
Strategic Advisor
Civil and Human Rights
wade@wadejhenderson.com

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Black History

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Celebrates New North Atlantic Regional Director

WASHINGTON INFORMER — As the 36th Regional Director, Dr. Ringgold will serve on the Alpha Kappa Alpha 18-member Board of Directors and will assist in the implementation of policies and programs under the leadership of International President and Chief Executive Officer Charletta Wilson Jacks.

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August 3, 2026

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Dr. Tonja L. Ringgold, an educator and Life Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated® (AKA), was installed as North Atlantic Regional Director during the organization’s 72nd Biennial International Convention on July 23 in Las Vegas.

Dr. Ringgold will serve a two-year term overseeing one of the Sorority’s largest and most historic regions. With more than 17,000 members, the Notable North Atlantic is the birthplace of the sorority, which was established on Jan. 15, 1908, at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

“I am excited and humbled by the faith placed in me to lead,” said Dr. Ringgold. “I welcome the opportunity to give back to this illustrious Sisterhood that has poured so much into me.”

The North Atlantic Region, one of the sorority’s 10 regions in the United States and abroad, comprises undergraduate and graduate chapters in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, eastern New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

As the 36th Regional Director, Dr. Ringgold will serve on the Alpha Kappa Alpha 18-member Board of Directors and will assist in the implementation of policies and programs under the leadership of International President and Chief Executive Officer Charletta Wilson Jacks.

Her previous sorority leadership includes serving as the North Atlantic Regional Representative to the International Program Committee and as North Atlantic Region Program Chairman. She also served as president of Epsilon Omega Chapter in Baltimore, Maryland.

Dr. Ringgold represents four generations of Alpha Kappa Alpha women, all initiated into the Alpha Delta Chapter at Morgan State University. She was initiated in 1982, following in the footsteps of her cousin and Alpha Delta Charter member, Mary Anita Short Wheatley, and her mother, Mary Jane Briscoe Short, a life member of the Sorority with 67 years of service. Her daughter Ashley R. Davy was initiated into the Alpha Delta Chapter in 2011.

A nationally recognized educator, Dr. Ringgold has spent more than three decades in higher education. She is a retired Vice President of Academic Affairs within the Community College system and is a faculty member in the Morgan State University’s Community College Leadership Doctoral Program. She also serves as president and CEO of En-Sight Educational and Management Consultants.

She holds a doctorate degree in education, master’s degrees in Applied Psychology, Management, Business Administration, and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology.

In addition to her Alpha Kappa Alpha service, Dr. Ringgold is president of the Baltimore County Chapter of The Pierians, Incorporated; a member of the National Council on Black American Affairs; and a member of the Coalition of 100 Black Women.

She resides in Parkville, Maryland.

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Business

How Oakland’s Courtsmith is Scaling its Business and Local Impact

OAKLAND POST — “As Courtsmith grew, scaling wasn’t just about selling more—it was about building the infrastructure to deliver consistently, with a strong supply chain and production process,” said Courtney Smith, founder of Courtsmith. “We needed the right kind of capital and partners to help us expand without losing the Oakland authenticity that made us who we are.”

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4 days ago

August 1, 2026

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With support from ICA Fund and JPMorganChase, founder Courtney Smith is strengthening his supply chain, creating jobs and expanding local production, and positioning the Oakland-born brand for long-term growth

When Courtney Smith founded Courtsmith in Oakland in 2014, he was building more than an athletic apparel company. A lifelong basketball enthusiast, Smith saw an opportunity to create performance wear that reflected the culture of the game—its style, community and sense of belonging.

From the beginning, Courtsmith was rooted in the idea that basketball is not just a sport, but a lifestyle and a community. The brand set out to make athletes look and feel good on and off the court while building partnerships that give athletes a stake in the products and stories they help shape.

“As Courtsmith grew, scaling wasn’t just about selling more—it was about building the infrastructure to deliver consistently, with a strong supply chain and production process,” said Courtney Smith, founder of Courtsmith. “We needed the right kind of capital and partners to help us expand without losing the Oakland authenticity that made us who we are.”

As the company grew, Smith faced a common challenge for small businesses: maintaining quality, reliability and authenticity of products while scaling—and having the resources to do so. The next move was not simply about expansion; it was about building the infrastructure to last.

That is where ICA Fund—a Bay Area impact investor, small business support organization and long-time partner to Courtsmith—came in. ICA’s relationship with Smith began in 2017 through its Growth Strategies advising program, and over time, the organization paired mentorship, technical assistance and capital to help the company grow with intention. More recently, philanthropic support from JPMorganChase helped ICA expand the range of capital products it can offer entrepreneurs like Smith, including options designed for companies that are ready to scale but may not be a fit for traditional debt products or equity investments.

“Too many great businesses stay stuck small without access to fair and flexible capital— ICA Fund’s role is to change that,” said Allison Kelly, CEO of ICA Fund. “With support from JPMorganChase, we’re able to provide founder-friendly financing alongside long-term partnership, giving entrepreneurs the tools they need to grow stronger businesses that create opportunity in their communities.”

The right kind of capital for a new stage of growth

ICA recently provided Courtsmith with a loan to help it buy a local manufacturing business, a major step toward bringing more of its production process closer to home, strengthening its supply chain, reducing costs, continuing its growth and creating local jobs.

The transaction also marked a milestone for ICA: the first time the organization approved capital for a merger-and-acquisition transaction. It reflects a broader expansion of the financing options it offers, supported by JPMorganChase’s American Dream Initiative, which aims, in part, to help power 10 million small businesses—up from seven million today—over the next several years with the capital, coaching, tools and practical policy support they need to thrive. It’s also an example of the kind of tailored support—delivered through trusted local pathways and the firm’s own relationships—that JPMorganChase provides to small businesses in the Bay Area, including our more than 295,000 small business clients.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and Courtsmith’s story shows how access to the right capital at the right time can unlock growth,” said Gwyneth Galbraith, Vice President for Global Philanthropy at JPMorganChase. “By supporting organizations like ICA Fund, we’re helping expand access to the kinds of financing and guidance entrepreneurs need to strengthen operations, create jobs and build lasting businesses across the Bay Area.”

Building with staying power

For small businesses, access to financing that fits their stage of growth can determine whether expansion is sustainable. A one-size-fits-all approach does not always work for companies with distinct cash-flow cycles, customer demand and operational needs. In Courtsmith’s case, the ICA loan gave the company a path to invest in its future while preserving the founder’s vision and control—and reflected the kind of flexible financing JPMorganChase is helping expand through its support of local community and mission-driven lenders.

Courtsmith’s trajectory reflects that momentum. The company reports that revenue grew 259% from 2021 to 2025, while its workforce expanded from four employees in 2017 to 13 in 2025, including growth in full-time roles from one to 11.

Behind those numbers is a company deepening its roots in Oakland through local partnerships, community presence and a model built to last.

“Courtsmith is about Oakland, representing the culture that raised us and creating opportunity for the next generation,” said Smith. “With ICA Fund and JPMorganChase in our corner, we can keep turning that mission into something people can see and feel in our community.”

Courtsmith’s next chapter is still being written, but the path is clearer: a founder-led brand with deeper local production capacity, a stronger supply chain, and a larger role in Oakland’s small business economy.