The Birth of a Nation was the first feature length film and also was the first film screened in the White House. The movie is important for it’s advancement of the genre of film and is preserved in the National Film Registry. Three hours long, it’s first part depicts the Civil War, complete with a re-enacted assassination of President Lincoln, and it’s second part follows the path of Reconstruction. It paints the Ku Klux Klan as heroes against the threat of African-Americans. African-Americans were depicted by white actors in blackface.
The Birth of a Nationwas adapted from a novel titledThe Clansman by Thomas Dixon. It’s name was changed from The Clansman to The Birth of a Nationafter Dixon suggested the title change due to it’s treatment of the civil war. Dixon had met future President Woodrow Wilson at Johns Hopkin University. Both men were born in the south and held racist beliefs. He arranged for the private screening of the film in the White House. One of the panes of text even quoted Wilson’s History of the American People, saying “The White men were roused by mere instinct of self-preservcation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the south, to protect the Southern country.”
The movie’s sequel, The Fall of a Nation, was the first sequel ever made.
