“The Birth of a Nation” movie is a 1915 screenplay that depicts the situation of racist America in those times during Civil War and Reconstruction. The film has two parts, with the first depicting the ideals that went on during the period of war and the second part showing the views of post-war reconstruction that was filled with racist stereotypes. This paper analyzes the second part of the film and how it shaped the description of the Southerners.
Directed by D.W. Griffith, the movie is set mainly in a South Carolina town and shows the situation before and after the Civil War. The plot begins with Stoneman and his protégé Silas Lynch moves to South Carolina to witness the implementation of the policies of reconstruction first hand. In an election that sees Lynch elected lieutenant governor, several malpractices are witnessed. Many whites are denied the right to vote while blacks are seen stuffing ballot boxes. After the elections, the blacks that are new in office are depicted as displaying inappropriate behavior. One member is shown taking off his shoe and placing his feet up on the desk. Others are shown drinking alcohol and eating stereotypically black fare like fried chicken. Upon seeing the white children scaring black children by pretending to be ghosts, Ben fights back by getting an inspiration to form Ku Klux Klan.
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This act makes Elsie, out of loyalty to her father, to end her relationship with Ben. Later in the film, Gus who is a newly promoted black official makes sexual advancements on Flora, who goes to the woods by herself. Upon knowing of the errand, he heads to the wood and finds Flora and reassures her that he intends to marry her. Instead of submitting to him, Flora slaps Gus and runs through the woods with him chasing behind. She finds herself trapped on the edge of the cliff and threatens to jump than be touched by Gus. She then jumps to the foot and then later dies in Ben’s arms. After a complicated search, the Ku Klux Klan gets him and lynches him then dumps his body on Lynch’s door. Lynch then orders a crackdown for the sect and helps in the enactment of a legislation encouraging mixed-race marriages. Ben is arrested but saved from the death penalty by Phil Stoneman and some black servants. Elsie learns of his arrest and pleads with Lynch for his release. Lynch forces to marry Elsie and this makes her faint. She is put in a separate room and when her father returns, Lynch tells him he wants to marry her. The Klan learns of Elsie’s plight and comes to her rescue by capturing Lynch. The Klan feels victorious and celebrates in the streets and in the following election; blacks are intimidated not to vote.
The second half of the movie reveals an outrageous racism and the depiction of the Reconstruction which elicited protest even in the days the movie was released, and has only been seen as disturbing over the years. Griffith has demonstrated how the end of Civil War created monstrous black slaves who teamed up with the carpetbaggers of the North to degrade, loot, and pillage the Southern lands. By showing black officers and officials engaging in behaviors that depict carelessness and extravagance, the film shows that the freed white slaves who represented the blacks politically were not fit to hold public offices and thus ensured horrific experiences to the white families in the region. The effect comes due to the fact that they combined forces with the carpetbaggers who were out to exploit the South (Foner, 2002). They removed the African-Americans from office and authority and united with the Northern whites depicted by the marriages at the end of the play.
The movie depicts blacks as violent, extravagant, and reckless during the reconstruction period. It shows how they had freedoms to even bar the whites from casting their votes. The freed men committed misdeeds throughout the play as shown by the politicians. Griffith makes it clear that blacks were not capable of performing the beliefs about the profound and natural disparity that swept across racial classes in America and pitted the whites against the blacks. Some of them threatened women with their sexual appetites which led to some white women like Flora committing suicide. In the Reconstruction South, the sexual pursuits of black men were seen as undermining the white supremacy and power as the whites feared black sexuality. This is evident in the contemporary lynching and killing of male blacks based on rape charges that were trumped-up, and this justified the violence that characterized Jim Crow ( Foner, 2011) . The play thus depicts freed black slaves as a danger and threat to the society and thus must be dealt with appropriately. Subtly, the film explains the inferiority experiences that the blacks passed through in the South.
However, there are ways in which the movie does not fully depict the history as it is in the Reconstruction South. First, the idea that the whole Reconstruction was a disaster does not accurately describe the South. The black outrage was not the only event that marked this period as the film puts it. It is known that after the Civil War, several states in the South enacted “black codes” to control the conduct and movement of the freed slaves (Foner, 2011). This ensured that no mixing of races occurred and gave a hard time for the blacks to be reinstated into the white culture. The film depicts blacks as people who went berserk, and it was the efforts of the Ku Klux Klan to restore the order and reclaim the South. The film applauds the conduct of the Klan. This massive role that they played does not have historical equivalence as they rode in small groups called “night riders (West, 2002).”
In conclusion, the film “The Birth of a Nation” brings mixed effects to the description of the Reconstruction South, some of which do not hold ground in history of the region. It is majorly based on the fact that it was the struggle of whites against the blacks who ran amok, something that does not seem to be accurate in history.
References
Foner, E. (2011). Reconstruction: America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877 . Harper Collins.
West, J. L. (2002). The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865-1877 . McFarland.
