What 'The Birth of a Nation' Taught Us About Law
A century after The Birth of a Nation sparked public and legislative opposition, these legal battles still offer important lessons on how the law works, highlighting the role that political maneuvering can play in resolving disputes.
“This story… reminds us that the law is made, enforced, administered, and interpreted by a combination and an interrelationship of all three branches of government. If you don’t understand that interrelationship, then you may not be fully equipped to understand how to win some legal battles,” said Judge Robert Wilkins of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a recent lunch talk that was part of the Law School’s Edward H. Levi Distinguished Jurist Program. “If you think that just understanding theory and principles is going to be sufficient to help you win some fights, you’re sadly mistaken. Some fights…are won before they even begin at a very, very local level. And oftentimes it’s very difficult to unscramble that egg once it’s been scrambled.”
In his talk, “A Tale of Two Cities: A Comparison of the Political and Legal Opposition to the Opening of The Birth of a Nation in Washington and Chicago,” Wilkins recounted the disparate public reaction after the movie’s 1915 release, sharing an insightful analysis of the complex negotiations that followed, as well as the impact that it had on both the African-American community and champions of free speech.
“The film had been met with diametrically opposed reactions,” Wilkins said. “On the one hand, the film was celebrated and received acclaim as a cinematic masterpiece…But the other reaction to the film was horror, because there was a passionate, political, moral opposition to it, as an insult to an entire race of people, to the northern supporters of the Civil War, and a recasting of the history of Reconstruction.”
Before D.W. Griffith screened his film nationwide, he faced opposition from state censorship authorities, which regulated public entertainment, as well as the NAACP, which desperately sought to stymie the film’s release due to its influence on the resurging Ku Klux Klan.
In Washington, Thomas Dixon, author of The Clansman, the book on which The Birth of a Nation was based, helped Griffith elude the city’s censoring authority by reaching out to a former college classmate—President Woodrow Wilson. With Dixon’s introduction, Griffith privately screened the film for the President and other important Washington officials. Although Griffith still had to apply to the censor boards in other cities, he gained enough leverage to prevail in Washington; President Wilson was quoted as saying that the film was “like writing history with lightning, and my only regret that it is all so terribly true.”
Wilkins contrasted Griffith’s relatively easy political maneuvering with the NAACP’s heroic, yet unsuccessful, efforts to ban public screenings in Washington. Neither their efforts to push resolutions through Congress nor appeals to the local city commissioners prevented the film’s public release. The NAACP ultimately resolved to ignore the film, worried that public protests would only increase the film’s popularity.
In Chicago, the “rough and tumble” legal fights between the NAACP and Griffith had the same outcome, despite the organization’s success in the city’s executive and legislative branches. The newly elected Republican mayor tried to revoke the film’s license— received through the former mayor’s approval, not the city’s strict licensing committee—but a judge checked the new mayor’s authority with an injunction against the city. After the film left Chicago, its opponents appealed to the state legislature, successfully passing a bill in 1917 prohibiting the negative public portrayal of a class of citizens. When The Birth of a Nation returned to Chicago in 1924, the city’s police chief invoked the 1917 statute against Griffith and the theater owner. The theater owner relied on the 1915 injunction and ignored the city’s warnings, so the police chief prepared for a showdown.
“The chief of police arranged…for Judge John Rooney of the Municipal Court to attend the showing with his bailiff and his clerk,” Wilkins said. “As [the film] was getting close to the end, the captain asked Judge Rooney to step out into the lobby and hold court right there. He swore out an arrest warrant for the theater owner and the employees of the theater for violating the 1917 law, right there in the theater lobby, I guess in between popcorn.”
Unfortunately, back in court, another judge upheld the 1915 injunction against the city despite the new statute. Even with every level of the local government involved, proponents of The Birth of Nation prevailed against the political will of its opponents.
Though there were some cities that successfully censored the film, every city had to deal with the thin line between free expression and hate speech.
“These battles necessarily created a tension…within the progressive community,” Wilkins said. “One journalist wrote that ‘liberals are torn between two desires. They hate injustice to the Negro, and they hate bureaucratic control of thought.’”
Wilkins’s illustration of this complex balance between political, legal, and constitutional considerations resonated with his law student audience. Kyle Panton, ’17, president of the Black Law Students Association, felt particularly inspired to approach his legal studies with an informed, holistic perspective.
Wilkins “illustrated that the law doesn’t occur in a vacuum,” Panton said. “That’s something I’ll definitely be thinking about more not just as I read cases, but when I look to my role in my community and how I can make my community a better place. Being a lawyer is more than just knowing the law. It’s about navigating it as well.”
Finally, Wilkins’s tale of two cities sheds light on African-American history. The film undoubtedly influenced a resurgence of Klan activity and violence against African Americans. Conversely, it also spurred the community’s efforts to promote positive and accurate images of African-American history and culture, especially after the NAACP’s unsuccessful political battles.
“Carter G. Wilson was inspired to create Negro History week, which is now Black History Month,” Wilkins said. “The Birth of a Nation was awful, but maybe we wouldn’t have Black History Month if not for The Birth of a Nation…I don’t want to give the movie credit for it, but all of these things are to some degree interrelated.”