“The Birth of a Nation” a silent film based on the book “The Clansman” by Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr, and directed by D W Griffith was released February 8th 1915 in Los Angeles, California. The film followed two families, one a pro Union northern family the other a pro Confederate southern family, through the years of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The film is the highest ever grossing of the silent film era. Nation was, and is a very controversial film. Its portrayal of African Americans, and the Ku Klux Klan as an heroic group caused riots in some cities when showed. The film was banned in several American cities, and was the first motion picture to ever be shown in the White House. President Woodrow Wilson said after watching Nation, that it was “like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true".
The Birth of a Nation revived the Ku Klux Klan, and was and is used as a recruiting tool.
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