Fighting a Movie with Lightning : „The Birth of a Nation“ and the Black Community

Despite their efforts, black activists throughout the early 20th century were not able to achieve full equality and fair treatment in society. However, they gained a new way of thinking that resulted in the formation of the ‘New Negro’. This term, in essence, designates a new way of thinking in the black community. Its members were neither satisfied with, nor accepted their inferior position in society and were willing to fight for their rights. Phenomena that paradoxically had a positive impact on the black community as a whole, and especially on the New Negro, were the actions undertaken by African Americans all over the United States in response to D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 silent movie The Birth of a Nation.
It is the aim of this paper to prove that these activities undertaken by African Americans and their supporters in the early 20th century against The Birth of a Nation influenced and shaped the black community as a whole, but especially the notion of the New Negro, both politically and culturally.