D W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation

by Melvyn Stokes

  W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), editor of the NAACP journal The Crisis. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-07435)

  Until the meeting with the mayor, the battle against Griffith’s film had been very largely an NAACP affair. It had tried to put pressure on the National Board of Censorship to ban the film. To further its legal suit, it had gathered signed affidavits criticizing the film from individuals such as scientist Jacques Loeb. It had orchestrated celebrated social worker Jane Addams’ opposition to the film, culminating in her highly critical interview with the New York Post on March 13.53 While not responsible for Francis Hackett’s searing indictment of The Birth of a Nation in The New Republic on March 20, it had effectively publicized his view by purchasing off-prints of the article and posting them to many newspapers across the country.54 But when the NAACP opted to become involved in New York politics, it felt obliged to seek allies outside its own immediate circle. Du Bois put the best possible gloss on this when he insisted, in The Crisis, that all colored groups had worked well together in the lead-up to the meeting with Mayor Mitchel.55 In reality, this was untrue. The NAACP’s intervention in New York politics underlined the differences existing within the black community in 1915. Booker T. Washington, regarded by many whites as the principal black leader of the time, disliked the NAACP and wanted to preserve his own influence. Outgoing federal officeholder Charles W. Anderson,56 who was close to Booker T. Washington and his “Tuskegee machine,” managed to reach the New York mayor during the week before the meeting on March 30 with the suggestion that he see the film and act at once. NAACP representatives who did attend the meeting with the mayor on March 30 were dumbfounded when Mitchel told them “that he had seen the play and had informed the producers that … two objectionable scenes must be eliminated and they had promised to comply with his wishes.” Washington himself was delighted with the whole affair, congratulating Anderson on “forestalling that crowd [the NAACP]” and taking “some of the wind out of their sails.”57

  The NAACP, having expected help—which it failed to get—from the National Board of Censorship, was much warier of the mayor’s assurances. It did, the next day, temporarily adjourn its legal case against the film but made clear that the action would be renewed if the changes promised by the film’s producers had not been made.58 The day after the hearing with the mayor, several members of the NAACP saw The Birth of a Nation again and reported that while some small changes had been made the two main scenes the mayor had objected to (Gus’s chasing Flora Cameron to her death and Lynch’s attempt to arrange a “forced marriage” with Elsie Stoneman) had not been removed. NAACP Chairman J. E. Spingarn wrote to the mayor to inform him of this on April 1.59 That same day, Mayor Mitchel met with D. W. Griffith, Thomas Dixon, and their lawyer and told them of his objections to the scenes concerned. The Griffith team, conscious that these particular sequences were vital to the narrative of the second part of the film, dissimulated. They promised to make the suggested cuts and arranged to meet Commissioner of Licenses Bell and Deputy Commissioner Kaufmann at the Liberty Theater to discuss what should be removed. It seems clear that Griffith and his colleagues had no intention of making more than minor, cosmetic changes to the film.60 On April 6, Spingarn again wrote to Mitchel pointing out that, although some cuts had been made, the two offensive scenes remained. The mayor asked Commissioner Bell for a report, and on April 9, May C. Nerney wrote to Bell pointing out that both controversial scenes were still being screened, although the one of Gus chasing Flora had been shortened. And there, in essence, the matter rested.61

  Black leader Booker T. Washington (1856–1915). (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-119897)

  Reflecting on the NAACP’s New York campaign in mid-April, Nerney confessed that the whole experience had been “a most liberal education.” “I have ceased to worry about it,” she told a Chicago correspondent, “and if I seem disinterested, kindly remember that we have put six weeks of constant effort on this thing and have gotten nowhere.”62 Having failed to persuade the National Board of Censorship either to suppress The Birth of a Nation completely or to have the most controversial sequences cut, the NAACP had also failed to persuade the mayor of New York to live up to the promises he had made at the hearing on March 30.63 It was left with a not very convincing lawsuit that tried to have the film banned as a danger to public order. Because the Liberty Theater was careful to avoid admitting blacks to the film—and had a group of private detectives on hand to forestall any hint of trouble—there was little danger of any real threat to social peace.64 The closest to an actual disturbance inside the theater came on April 14, when a white member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Howard Schaeffle, threw eggs at the screen and African American Cleveland G. Allen, the head of a black news agency, shouted a protest at the inappropriateness of showing a film like Birth on the fiftieth anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination. Both men were promptly hustled out by detectives and ushers.65 There was a brief flicker of hope on the part of the NAACP in late April and early May; an ordinance was introduced in a meeting of the Board of Aldermen supposedly to extend the authority of the Commissioner of Licenses to make it possible for him to suppress movies (both Mayor Mitchel and Commissioner Bell were uncertain over the precise limits of their authority), but when the NAACP realized that the draft ordinance had no such provisions it lost interest.66 Finally, in late May, the legal suit against Birth of a Nation was dismissed and the NAACP’s campaign against the film in New York finally came to an end.67

  In retrospect, it was never likely that the NAACP could have won. The struggle against The Birth of a Nation was a war fought to defend blacks but waged primarily by whites. Even when it came to organizing clergy to oppose the movie, it was primarily white ministers who became involved. Yet, there was always only a tiny minority of whites involved in fighting the film. Even men and women who were usually supporters of the NAACP found it hard to understand what all the fuss was about: S. S. Frissell went to see Birth and found it largely unobjectionable.68 Most white audiences who watched the film became enthusiasts for it. The white press concentrated on printing favorable reviews and advertisements for the film; the only real criticism came from Oswald Garrison Villard’s Post, which printed Jane Addams’s critical interview on March 13, and radical papers such as the Call.69 It was in vain that the NAACP leadership tried to accumulate evidence of the ways in which the film fostered racial prejudice against African Americans.70 Most of the black population of New York seem to have reacted to The Birth of a Nation with “utter indifference.” Lester Walton, the black film critic of the New York Age and a convinced opponent of Griffith’s film, accused other African Americans of lacking racial solidarity because of their failure to protest against it.71

  The Boston Campaign

  In early April, as its campaign against The Birth of a Nation in New York was starting to wind down, the NAACP found itself involved in a second major fight to have the film suppressed, this time in Boston where it was advertised to have its first public performance at the Tremont Theater on April 10. In theory, Boston offered far more fertile ground for such an attempt than New York. It had a strong antislavery tradition. Boston was the home city of William Lloyd Garrison and his supporters, such as William Ellery Channing, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and John Greenleaf Whittier. Black voters made up a significant part of the Democratic coalition of minorities and the disadvantaged assembled by James Michael Curley, then in the early stages of his long career as the city’s mayor.72 Finally, the press had a record of being more sympathetic toward black anxieties and preoccupations in Boston than in New York. But if the NAACP expected to exercise uncontested leadership of the Boston campaign, they reckoned without the bullish figure of William Monroe Trotter. Editor of the black newspaper The Guardian, Trotter—in common with another Harvard-trained African American, W. E. B. Du Bois of the NAACP—was a severe critic of what he saw as the compromising and accommoda
ting approach to race relations of Booker T. Washington. Trotter, as a result of his outspokenness, had managed to alienate President Wilson at a meeting at the White House in November 1914 when he had led a delegation protesting the continuing segregation in Washington.73 In some ways, however, this was symptomatic of the Trotter style. Whereas the NAACP preferred discreet background pressure and lobbying, Trotter was a pioneer of direct action and confrontation.74

  Trotter was away from Boston when the city’s branch of the NAACP, together with the radical Boston Literary and Historical Association, requested that Mayor Curley hold hearings to consider whether The Birth of a Nation should be banned. But he rushed back for the meeting on April 7. In the days leading up to it, the film’s critics and its defenders had already staked out their positions. Moorfield Storey, president of the NAACP’s board of directors, wrote a letter attacking the film that was published in the Boston Herald. Storey argued that The Birth of a Nation distorted history, offered “a caricature of the negro,” and incited racial prejudice. He quoted from Jane Addams’s critique of the film. J. J. McCarthy, business manager for the film, replied in a letter published in the Herald on the day scheduled for the mayoral hearings. McCarthy argued that the NAACP was intent on fomenting racial prejudice and violence and that the historical “truth” of the film was attested to by such authorities as James Ford Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, and Walter L. Fleming. Indeed, he said, Griffith was so certain of the film’s accuracy that he had offered $10,000 to anyone who could demonstrate that any part of it was historically untrue. McCarthy further claimed that the director should be credited with inventing a whole new art. He suggested that Addams’s comments on Birth were vitiated because she had viewed only half the film, and he queried whether Storey had actually seen the movie or was acting on hearsay alone. McCarthy finished by declaring that the film had the support of many distinguished Americans, including banker and philanthropist George Foster Peabody; ministers Charles H. Parkhurst and Thomas B. Gregory; Congressman Claude Kitchen, the new majority leader of the House of Representatives; Senators Martine, Fletcher, Myers, Walsh, and Jones; Governor Hiram Johnson of California; and several eminent writers.75

  The hearing before Mayor Curley was held in the afternoon of April 7. Curley was genial and clearly enjoyed the opportunity for grandstanding. He interrupted the anti-film speakers with questions and, equally, allowed them to interrupt him. Mary White Ovington, the first witness, thought him “a democratic and very kindly Irishman.” Curley was clearly more worried about hints of sexual immorality than anything else, questioning Ovington over whether Flora Cameron in her scenes with Gus was “unsufficiently dressed.” Ovington was honest enough to answer in the negative, but she tried (unavailingly) to persuade him that the “sensuous look” on Gus’s face would inevitably have suggested immorality to audiences. From the end of Ovington’s testimony onward, things went steadily downhill for the NAACP contingent. Curley dismissed the evidence of Storey, who spoke next, because he had not himself seen the film. Neither, apparently, had the rector of Trinity Church, Alexander Mann, who attempted to suggest that the film should be suppressed because it was based on Thomas Dixon’s play, The Clansman, which had been banned in Boston by Curley’s mayoral predecessor (and great rival), John F. Fitzgerald. Then architect Joseph P. Loud made some comments on the film in a “very shaky” voice. At that point, the NAACP’s formal role in the proceedings came to an end. The next speaker, Trotter, who was also the last to attack the film, proved far better: Ovington described him as “eloquent” and thought he had made “a very fine impression.” Knowing Curley well, Trotter knew just how to appeal to the mayor: he reminded him that blacks had supported him in the past, but asserted that future support would depend on how Curley responded to The Birth of a Nation.76

  After Trotter had finished, the defenders of the film were permitted half an hour to make their case. John F. Cusick, the attorney for Epoch, argued that the film demonstrated the racial progress that had been made since the Civil War and mentioned the formal approval for the film by the National Board of Censorship. When Cusick commented, however, that the film had been seen by President Wilson, a “tremendous hissing” became audible from the mainly black audience. Griffith was then given a chance to speak in defense of his film. He insisted on his right to film history as he saw it, but—asked by Curley if he would cut the scene of Gus pursuing Flora—assured the mayor he would if the Boston authorities required such a change. After the hearing was over, Storey asked Griffith (in relation to his promise to pay $10,000 to anyone who could prove that the film presented an untrue version of history) if it was true that a mulatto lieutenant-governor of South Carolina had locked up a white girl to force her into marriage. Griffith made no direct reply, only asking Storey to go and see the film. He then offered to shake hands with Storey who, in an ironic echo of the scene in the film in which Ben Cameron declines to shake the hand of Silas Lynch, drew back and refused.77

  James Michael Curley (1874–1958), long-serving mayor of Boston. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-62918)

  While Curley had seemed sympathetic to critics of the film, he made no immediate move to prevent its exhibition. Indeed, he declared that he had no right to stop it from being shown unless it tended “to injure the morals of the community” or was “immoral or obscene.” Yet he asked to have municipal censor John S. Casey and a representative of the police commissioner present at a private showing of the film on April 9. In their reports, both asserted that there were no legal grounds for banning the film. Curley, however, had attended the same preview and become convinced that a number of racially inflammatory sequences should be cut. While the mayor had no legal power to require this, the film’s producers obviously felt it would be politically sensible to have him on their side. The film officially opened on April 10, therefore, with a number of cuts in addition to those made in New York. According to Curley, these included the intertitle that said bringing the African to America planted the first seed of disunion, Charles Sumner’s meeting with Lydia Brown, Austin Stoneman’s mulatto housekeeper [Sumner, an opponent of slavery, had been a senator from Massachusetts], “certain scenes” between Lydia Brown and Stoneman and Lydia and Silas Lynch, sequences set in the South Carolina House of Representatives showing a man removing his shoes and the assembly discussing a motion that all members must wear shoes, and parts of the sequence in which Gus chases Flora, including at least five shots of Gus’s facial expressions.78

  To the annoyance of the film’s opponents, The Birth of a Nation opened in Boston to a fanfare of praise from the press and clear audience approval. “The picture, an unusual and admirable entertainment,” remarked the Boston Herald, “deserves every success.” Its reception by the opening night audience, Harry Aitken noted, had equaled the warmth of that in Los Angeles or New York.79 Efforts to have the film suppressed continued. On Monday, April 12, Trotter and a delegation of around twenty-five black men and women called on the mayor to reiterate their demand that Birth be banned. Trotter argued that colored people were being denied tickets by the management of the Tremont Theater and thus that a Southern-style segregationist color line was being drawn in Boston. Curley appeared to be sympathetic (Joseph P. Loud of the NAACP would accuse him later that week of “playing to the colored galleries”). He condemned the film as “an outrage on the negro race” but insisted that he had no power to prevent its being shown.80

  The first week of The Birth of a Nation’s run in Boston saw the Griffith forces go on the offensive. As well as claiming that many prominent Americans endorsed the film, they also took out advertisements in all the newspapers in an attempt to discredit as “agitators” those who were protesting against the film. The film’s producers may also have had a hand in ensuring that many of the leading protestors were followed for several days by detectives. “They certainly have employed every possible means money will buy to force the play upon Boston,” declared Joseph P. Loud on April 15.
81 That same day, the Boston press reported that Griffith had begun work on a new film that would balance the account of the black role in the era of the Civil War described in Birth of a Nation with a supplementary film that would show the progress achieved by African Americans since that time.82 There was a considerable element of dissimulation involved in this news; it seems to have been simply a trial balloon. The new film was already complete and had its first airing at the Tremont Theater the next day, April 16.83 This chronology undermines the assumption that Griffith first thought of basing such a film on the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, directed by Booker T. Washington. He had actually suggested this to Philip J. Allston and Dr. Alexander Cox of the Negro National Business League after the April 10 première.84 But the film itself, shot at the Hampton Institute, the industrial school in Virginia from which Washington had graduated, must have been ready or nearly ready at that point.