The Birth of a Nation

D.W. Griffith was raised in South Carolina by his father who was an ex-confederate soldier. Griffith was raised to believe that father’s views on the superiority white race and the strength of the Confederacy were the natural and correct beliefs. And, when his father joined the Ku Klux Klan, the young boy was introduced to a magnified degree of racism and white supremacy. However, he was blinded from the reality of the situation. When Griffith created the film, “Birth of a Nation,” he based it on a glorified version of the KKK and their attempt to preserve the peace of the Confederacy, but fails to show the horrors created by the organization during their crusade.

In the film, “Birth of a Nation,” it is explained how when the blacks are given a right to vote, and an election for a senator takes place. A power-hungry mulatto man was elected. The Clan agreed that he had triggered the “fermentation of their peaceful state.” They believed the blacks were electing leaders who were destroying the C

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In the film, the Klan’s violent action was under-exaggerated in order to withhold the dignity of the Klan for those who did not believe such actions were justified.

At the finale of the movie, the Klan attempted to save the besieged cabin of a Union veteran, his daughter, and his companion from a rabble of blacks and carpetbaggers breaking down the cabin door. In addition, in no instances in the film were the black men suspected of illegal sexual acts wrongfully accused as they were in reality.

At another point of the film, the Mulatto Senator passed a bill that legalized the relationships between blacks and whites. The Klan triumphs and saves the cabin and disarms the blacks. If the Klan received news of such a conflict concerning Union soldiers, they would probably have taken no action and let the Unionist’s perish. Many scenes in this film promoting this point are Hollywood fantasy rather than historically accurate portrayal. In order to prevent the blacks from voting for the Radical Republican Candidates, the Klansmen lingered around the voting booths in atop their horses and in costume to intimidate the black voters. The victim’s brother, a Klansmen, enlisted townsmen to search for the accused rapist, so "that he may be given a fair trial in the dim halls of the Invisible Empire. Seldom was a black accused of rape actually guilty. Most likely, the Klan would not have performed such a favor for Union men.

“The Birth of a Nation” was a propaganda film attempting to make the Ku Klux

Klan appear to be an upstanding organization whose only goals were to maintain the Confederacy. In fact, more often than not, members of the Klan accused innocent blacks of rape for an excuse to harm them. In reality, not only did the Klan use their presence to frighten the blacks from voting, they also used violence.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 773
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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