Most people are unaware that the first “blockbuster” and “box-office” hit was The Birth of a Nation. The film came out in February of 1915 and was originally titled The Clansman, a fitting title for a film that glories the Klu Klux Klan. Prior to the film, the KKK, which was founded in 1865, had lost most of its popularity and was mostly a regional hate group. After The Birth of a Nation, the KKK was revitalized. Recruitment skyrocketed, bolstered by the Jim Crow legal system, among so many other deeply evil aspects of society.
The film bolstered the idea that the Klan was there to save the South from savage Black men raping white women, a racist myth that would be propagated for years.
The Birth of a Nation was also the first film to be screened in the White House under President Wilson. The 1920s would mark the peak of the KKK, in 1925 25,000 members marched in Washington, DC. Although even today the hate group rages on, the attacks on the Capitol just two weeks ago mirroring the 1925 event. Different symbols of hate replacing the insidious white hoods, or perhaps hoods conveniently left at home.
