"Birth of a Nation" in Waterloo

by

Michael Kates

In September of 1915, the Secretary of the London Anti-Slavery and Abolition Protection Society wrote to the Official Board of Films Censors inquiring about the film "Birth of a Nation." The President of the Board of Censors, stating that the "film had been submitted to the examining body and passed." By October "Birth of a Nation" had reached England, playing at the London Theater. The secretary of the Society, in a letter to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), wrote

The play involves a gross misrepresentation of the Negro character and is calculated to stir up bad feeling against them. Consequently, we much deplore its being shown especially at a time when the colored races of our Empires are doing so much to help us in the Great War crisis.

When "Birth of a Nation" opened in American urban theaters, it was met with great resistance by local NAACP chapters and African-American communities. Although cities such as New York, Chicago, and Boston were unable to stop the film from being shown, African-American leaders in St. Paul, Minnesota, were able to get certain segments, such as the "Gus" scene that portrayed a black man attempting to rape a white woman, removed from the film. In Columbus, Ohio, the filmmakers again cut out certain scenes to make it more appealing to African Americans and assure its showing in the city’s theaters. The attempt to make the movie more palatable failed. The film so outraged the African-American community that the governor of Ohio assured the NAACP that "Birth of a Nation" would never appear in that state while he was in office. Throughout cities across the United States the film aroused similar resistance, but as a representative of the NAACP stated, "Our fight is not yet over. The play is leaving the cities and going into the smaller towns where its influence may be greater than in the larger cities."