Transcripts For CSPAN3 Q A 20150219

This week on q a, our guest is dick lehr, author of the birth of a nation, how a legendary fille maker and crusading editor reignited americas civil war. Dick lehr, author of the birth of a nation in a recent Washington Post review, the gentleman that wrote it Dennis Drabelle starts out this way no red blooded american today would favor sensoring works of art, but while reading dick lehrs new book the birth of a nation, you may find yourself rooting for just that in the form of a clamp down on the landmark 1915 teen film of the same name. Boy, isnt that a great start to a review. Not bad to use the word fascinating fascinating. Why birth of a nation. Well birth of a nation by d. W. Griffith is considered americas first blockbuster film and i want to tell the making and releasing of the film in 1915 and the controversy that is provoked. And it is mainly a story about a civil rights leader a forgotten kriefl rights civil rights leader named William Trotter at the forefront of protest actions against this film about the civil war reconstruction which is entirely racist in the portrayal of black america america. If this film came out today in a multi plex what would happen . I hope it wouldnt get censored, but i think there could be protests at the heart of the story in griffiths hands. Well just do a minute. Want to show the opening of this. So if people havent seen it, they will understand what it looks like for three hours and 12 minutes. Lets watch. The first minute of the birth of the nation, what did we just see. As griffith showed in the title said the first thing of this union in america was the bringing of africans as slaves to the United States and it sets the note that the the tone that freeing slaves was a huge mistake. When did you first watch this and what was your reaction to it . Boy, my first viewing of this was like many peoples it was in a film history course in college. It is the starting point, because this movie in terms of film making technique was a breakthrough moment in the history of american film so in survey courses this is where you begin and a lot of attention is paid as it should to griffiths pioneering film making techniques and the use of the closeup and the crosscutting to enhance the drama and what not and the epic scale of it. It goes on for three hours as you mentioned. And so that that was that. That is where i first got into it. There is a huge disconnect between the technique and the story that it tells of the civil war and reconstruction. February, what was the date 17th 1915. There was a showing of this movie at the white house when Woodrow Wilson was president. Explain how that happened. Well, the filmmakers and griffith being the director, but also the author of the book the klansmen upon which it was based written by a popular and racist writer by the name of tom dicksson. Well he and wilson went way back. They were friends. They knew each other in college at john hopkins and dickson like griffith had a knack of marketing said lets get this movie screened in the white house and he pulled it off. And that is what happened on that date in the east room of the white house. There was the first ever screening of a motion picture. And before a president of the United States who thought it was a terrific piece of work. Who was in the crowd . Who was in the crowd . His family his immediate some of his cabinet members and some other highranking washington figures. But you also had in your book, a former chief justice. Former chief justice. You have serious power brokers. And it went so well that night that dickson and griffith very quickly put together a second screening for the Supreme Court of the United States and the congressional leader and what not. Again, terrific sense of marketing and promotion and in getting these power brokers behind the movie as being an awesome piece of film making. You have to remember when you go back to 1915, the film industry, the film is in its infancy. No one had ever seen anything like what griffith had produced. Sort of take away the subject matter being the civil war in reconstruction. But just the effects of it all. Had people people and audiences weeping during emotional scenes and other members on their feet applauding during battle scenes and what not. It was kind of the star wars of the time. Where was Woodrow Wilson from originally . Woodrow wilson was from the south, from kentucky. Where was d. W. From . From the south. From kentucky. He was a son of the south. His father Lieutenant Colonel error indonesia rorin griffith. And where was dixon from . He was from the south as welcome. So you have a unified front so to speak in a Southern View of the war and its aftermath. This is you writing u. S. Reporters and the society filled the remaining seats. Turnout on such short notice exceeded any reasonable expectation to attend journalists had to agree the film was off the record because it had not yet been shown publicly in the east. And those were the terms both for the screening at the white house and then the second screening just mentioned. But griffith was not one to live by those terms because he sent telegrams after the white house screening to a favorite entertainment reporter of his at the l. A. Times, a woman named grace kingsley and reported both the screening and how wonderful it had gone. And it was grace kingsley in one of her entertainment columns 3000 miles away who broke the news there was this mazing screening in the white house. What was Woodrow Wilsons known attitude at the time about africanamericans . Well, you know i think he was very smart politically because the crusading newspaper editor, the civil rights leader who is a main character in the book trotter had supported wilson when he ran for president in 1912. He and other black leaders had gone and met with him in new jersey and had come away encouraged by wilsons promise to be fair to all americans. And i just think at that moment, trotter was incredibley naive. Because it was under wilsons watch as president that National Government went jim crow. There is an enormous amount of backsliding. Segregation and other federal agencies was unprecedented and it drove trotter nuts. Our audience should know this is in the Public Domain so they can go on you tube and there are plenty of opportunities to watch the whole thing. Well show excerpts through the hour. Here is one. It is a minute and 16 and well talk about it after we start. It is slaves shown in demeaning roles in the early part of the movie. What is the time period here . Before the civil war. And this is what is known as part one of the movie and what not. And the notion here is to show that they are kind of they are demeaning roles but they are a funloving bunch of slaves. There is a certain harmony about it and peace and well being in a way. This is part of looking back to the precivil war years that are part of a socalled lost cause and the nostalgia for a time that wasnt so bad for everybody. And where is this actual location . This is in the fictional town of piedmont, South Carolina. It is in South Carolina. One of the things you notice when you watch the movie, is that some blacks are actually black people and others are black faced white people. Why the mixture . I dont know why griffith chose to do that. The overwhelmingly majority of actors were white actors in black face. And certainly any of the major characters who were black in the movie are white actors in black face. You are talking about the review or the leaking of the story to the woman at the new york or the l. A. Times, grace kingsley. Let me use a quote from back then. And now comes the protest of the darkies and the interference of the police against exhibition of the picture. How regular did you find the word darkies was used back then . All of the time. This is a movie that opened first in l. A. In february, was screened at the white house and went to new york in march of 1915 and then headed to boston where there was this amazing battle. And reviewed everywhere, however, were almost almost universally just fawning over the movie. And i think and then also in the same breath, very critical of the black protests that were starting to develop and snow ball so to speak and climaxed in boston. It was dismissive and hostile. Like the quote you just read. Compare that to like later in the year when i think it was the review in the atlanta constitution who after seeing the movie wrote an array of review saying greece it its homer, we have our d. W. Griffith. How did you get to this as a book . I have to say i was aware of the film. Earlier we mentioned we were aware of it from college and film studies but it was trotter who grabbed my attention. About five years ago and i cant remember the article that i was reading but it made a reference to Monroe Trotter of boston. A newspaper man and a civil rights leader. And you live in boston. And i live in boston. Im a journalist. I teach there. Im interested in issues of civil rights and im going wait, who is this guy . I didnt know him. And that embarrassed me for all of the reasons i just mentioned. And i started reading further and i realized what a big deal he was in the early 1900s and he is a forgotten civil rights leader and he would have been mentioned in the same breath as booker t. Wash and e. B. Debois and maybe there is a biography on this guy because he was odd volk ating a new strategy on the Civil Rights Movement in challenging booker t. Washington. And i learned there was a biography written him back 40 something years ago out of print titled the guardian, which is the name of his weekly newspaper. And so i said yeah i think there is a place for a new biography. And then i got to 1915 and i got just the surface in some of the references to how he was at the forefront of this extended protest against the movie, like i said that i knew about. And that was any ahamoment. And i said that is the drama and the story in which to capture what i think are big ideas about Civil Liberties and civil rights, a film and media revolution and that is where i started to channel my efforts. Here is an excerpt, and it is a civil war battle. But before we get to that and well come back to trotter. The stowman familiar and the cam ran family, set that up. Griffith to tell such a big story, the civil war and its aftermath, he tells it through two families. The camerons from this fictional town of paidiedmont, kk and the stonemans from the north. They knew each other from before the war and there is interlocking relationships from the family and romances between the various children and so that is their story played out before during and after the war. How much of this is fiction . All of that, yeah. Here is a civil war battle. Lets watch. Where is this supposed to be. The man with the sword waving it around that is the little colonel, ben cameron getting wounded and hurt in their charge against the blue coats. That fellow right there. Waving the flag. So it is about his courage and bravery. And yet the union on the right and the confederates on the left. And again hopefully if you are realizing, this is in the time an amazing piece of cutting and film making. With the red tiptnt. Yeah. That is one of the stonemans. He is recognizing his friend from the south. This is the crossing of the line. These are two friends. Yeah. Cameron from the south and the stoneman from the north. In the end, the red line of death. Others take their places an the battle goes on into the night. This really captures griffith and what people were blown away by. That he was able to stage a battle scene like that. Now what is this . This is the aftermath of war. And the color is changed. Yeah. That is again technique for tinting and mood and fadeout. These were all cuttingedge techniques that enhanced the emotional impact of the film. Why did d. W. Griffith think people would sit still for a threehour plus movie. He was taking a chance in many ways. Because it wasnt that far removed in 1905 ten years earlier, where the first nickelodeons grew with very short entertainments for a nickel and that went on ten minutes and in intervening years as you became a director, there was an apprenticeship for him where he the earliest films were socalled onereelers, 10 or 15 minutes long. He was directing them and wrote the scenarios for them and what not. But he was incredibly ambitious who wanted to elevate film to a higher artform and some of the techniques he and a cinematographer billy bitter did and others he put to a new use and it culminated in 1914 when he was filming this but he was in search of a bigbang moment and a big story in which to really spread his wings as a filmmaker and blow audiences away, which he succeeded in doing. How much film making was there back then . It was a growing industry and an industry that had in its infancy learned that these quick turnaround entertainments and comedies and what not were profitable. And griffith was hugely successful making those for a Company Called bio graph. But by 1913 he was at odds with the owners because again they wanted him to stick with the recipe. We are making a lot of money here. And he is saying, no there is more here. We can do more with this medium. And so he had a fallingout and left. When did Monroe Trotter first get wind of this movie . And how well did he know Woodrow Wilson . Well that is two questions. Let me start with the wilson one. Because i love the fact that there is connective tissue between wilson and griffith which we mentioned in terms of the screening in the white house. But a couple of months before that, in the end of 1914, trotter had his an encounter with wilson also in the white house that i think if you juxtapose the two it says everything about this dynamic here. And as i said earlier trotter supported wilson in 1912 for the presidency and by 1914 he and many black leaders in the country were appalled at the jim crow and the federal government. Trotter insisted on an audience with the president. And pulled every string he could to get into the white house in the late fall of 1914. Which he did. And he presented the president with a huge petition, he confronted him in a very firm trotterlike way about the segregation and the federal offices and what a betrayal this was to black america. And wilson had soured so fast. Wilson couldnt believe that a black man was talking to him in this way. And he essentially he effectively told trotter to stop and no one has ever talked to him like this. And he told others in the delegation if they come back he will have to find someone else to represent them and he kicked trotter out of the white house. And you have a quote. When the negro delegate trotter threatened me i was damn fool enough to lose my temper and point them to the door. What i ought to have done was to listen and held my resentment and what i should have done is consider considered and none more would have been learned about the matter but i played the fool. And that became the big front page news. The dustup between a civil rights leader and the president and that was out of the playbook that trotter used in his encounters from trotter. Like when wilson persuaded trotter to support him. He lost it at that moment. And i love that, for that scene. Because trotter he was not impressed with power. He was speaking truth to power. But here was a guy who had gone to harvard. In the class of 1895, in hard. The firstfy beta cappa and went on to be elected officials and congressmen and what not. He was not overwhelmed by the trappings of the oval office. And he wasnt impolite. He was just making his case. And wilson was just unused to it. The one thing this has nothing to do with whether the movie is good or bad. The one thing i did find very well done was the lincoln assassination. Of all of the times ive seen that in places and this was back in 1915. I know. And again, i think this is all about the scale and capabilities of d. W. Griffith. Did i read in your book that they had a complete mockup of the ford theater . Yes. In the new hollywood. This is where a lot of the most of the film was filmed in hollywood which griffith had gone to and started working in in 1910. So this is also a story that gets at the early days of hollywood. We have a minute and a half of it to show and there is more to it and it leads up with the what we wont see is the guard sitting outside of the box where Abraham Lincoln was sitting and then John Wilkes Booth comes around later and opens the door and shoots him. Lets watch it and then can you explain what is going on. Sure. That is John Wilkes Booth right there. As you look at the box there on the left was major rathbone and his wife is that Mary Todd Lincoln over there . Yes. And that is the daringer . Yes. And i go to film making technique here. The closeup and the cross cutting. It used to be again, this was revolutionary in a way. It used to be you put a camera down and you had actors performing in front of it. That is the stage. Yep. And here comes the assassination. And the shifting points of view. John killks booth jumping John Wilkes Booth jumping on to the stage. There he go. And there is ben cameron there. There is your narrative threat. It looks just like ford theater does today. Yeah. I know. Ive seen still photographs, present of of them, the set theyve created. Back in 1915 to audiences, this was spellbinding creating this kind of film making. And you can hear the music, that was important to griffith. This was an original score. He had a leading composer create it. You said in your book, in boston there was a 40piece orchestra. 28piece in boston but in some there was a 40piece orchestra. It helped to create the magic of it all. Ushers and usherettes were in period costumes and the movie would start in 20 minutes or something. And how many people acted in the movie and plus all of the extras. I dont have an exact account. And griffith again, who was one of the groundbreaking and in Public Relations in self promotion talked about having 25,000 extras in the civil war scene of which we saw. That was wildly untrue. Again, he used a lot of tricks with the camera to make it seem like thousands of soldiers. But i dont have an accurate count to include extras and major roles and what not. How long did it take him to make the film . With a sense of history. He started shooting on july 4th 1914 and done by the end of the year. Did you plan your book because this is the 100th anniversary of this . I did. I could have yeah. I think the centennial of the movie is next year. I expect people to be paying attention it to it in the film world and i wanted a story that both that gave good notice to all of that accomplishment and what not but to put it in the larger context of the times. Not just in terms of the civil rights but also in the issue of censorship and what not. You said the public is watching this. We taped it in 14 but it is being watched in 15 and so 2015 is the 100 anniversary. And how much did it cost . That is another thing that griffith exaggerated about immensely but in the end it was about 100,000. And he put it at half a million dollars. And how much would that be today . I would have to get a calculator. Where did he get his money. He partnered up with a producer named hairy akin and got his primary financing from that producer. But as i went over budget in late summer and early fall he started bartering and cutting deals with certain folks in california well, like, the man who owned clunes auditorium, he sold an interest in the film in exchange for cash. So he was able to close the budget gap with some of that creative financing. How old was Monroe Trotter and d. W. Griffith and thomas dixon back in those days in 1915 . In 1915, trotter and griffith were a couple of years apart. In their mid 30s. Dixon was the elder statesman of the crew because he was well into his 40s at that point. And he had been an enormously successful novelist and play right in the early 1900s writing. And he was a var illent racist and the klansman was the third of in a trilogy of books that explored those themes and the context of the civil war and after. Who at the time took this movie on besides the black folks . Well they had the they had the support of a number of liberals and supporters of civil rights in the white community. The difficult thing that got tricky there is because one of the strategies of the protesters and trotters goal in boston was to get the film censored which from our perspective in the 21st century gave me discomfort as a newspaper and First Amendment guy. Why is a newspaper editor using that kind of means . And at the time, they did lose some support among white liberals and civil libertarians because of the goal of censorship. Im going to show a clip. Is it the South Carolina legislature . Yes, it is. Which is dominated by ex slaves. Can you give us a setup on this . Sure. Part two of the movie, after the war, is the heart of the protest in the sense this is where the blacks are just appalled by the portrayal of freed slaves and this is a seen showing what happens when you give former slaves the right to vote the right to be elected and the right to govern. It is a scene in the South Carolina legislature where their first and primary order of business is to pass abill allowing for interracial marriage because in griffiths hands black men are solely interested in pursuing and having white women. It appears that they are solely black . Is that true . No. And griffith claims during and after the film about the historical accuracy and i dont have the numbers at my finger tips but he has this scene that blacks overwhelmingly control i think what his numbers will be in the film and that was not true and there was no legislature in the south that i think in reconstruction that was dominated by blacks. To say, this is part of where you begin to see the stereo typing of black folks back in those days. Absolutely. So you have to watch closely as to what they are doing. It kind of runs fast. It does happen fast, yeah. Among other things we see the drinking, eating chicken. Fried chicken. And feet on the desk. Feet on the desk, picking their toes. Yeah, this is what happens when you free slaves. That is what he said. That is what griffith said. And it is called historically accurate. And they passed a bill that all whites had to salute negroes . Right. Not true. And up in the balcony you see a few white people. And now the minority, and the bee siege and the helpless white minority. And all of this, when they saw that at the white house, they liked this . Yeah wilson liked it a lot. And again dixon and griffith the american historian he had written history of america. They had drawn on to using quotes from the book as some of the intertitles so they knew how to play at wilsons ego. Was there a time when Woodrow Wilson saw this, after this, did he ever condemn it . Not that i came across. For months they tried to deny that and it was a misdirection and tried to keep quiet or even denied they had the white house screening. It became a political the fellow there in the middle is called a mill otto. Silas lynch. Hes there in the middle. What is the politics of having a quote, unquote mill ot yo sent down to South Carolina to be elected Lieutenant Governor . To show that blacks are in charge and in control. The diminution of white blood and he accompanies a carpet bagger to become the Lieutenant Governor. He is one of the main black characters in the film. And hes sent down there by the stoneman family. Yeah and he becomes governor of South Carolina. And that is the thread that griffith is playing with in terms of the two families, one from the south and one from the north. We sew thestoneman family from the beginning. And he is thaddeus republican. And he was trying to dictate to the south. Yeah. And in implementing freedom for the slaves and what not in a punitive way against the whites and plantation life in the south. How many times have you watched the movie . I think entirely, there was film course in college there was a time when i saw it as a newspaper reporter working undercover on a assignment involving the klan where the film was shown at a klan meeting. And you were in the room . I was in the room. I was a young reporter in hartford, connecticut and david dukes plan was recruiting members in connecticut of all places and duke came to connecticut and gave press conferences during the day and held a secret meeting at night and it is a meeting i infiltrated and he surprised me and the other dozen or so people in the room when he pulled out birth of the nation as his propaganda and proof of why you should join the klan. What year was that . That was 1979. So for me when i came to writing this book, the first viewing in college, i came away understanding its place in film history in terms of film technique. It was that second filming that hit me with the propaganda power. Did they cheer . Oh, yeah. And when you saw the screening and you were undercover, the people in the room cheered. Yes. When we get to a scene they are going to show with dukes racist narration, see how one white man can fight off a handful of blacks and there could be cheering in the room and what not. Did they ever figure out who you were . Yeah. Because i wrote about it soon after. The idea was to reveal both who was the connecticut leader and the number of connecticut members because duke and his in his press conferences was claiming the drive was enormous enormously successful and had 3 hus plus 300 plus new members and at the deal there were new biker typed and it blew his whole new thing out of the water. Here is gus in a scene with flora. Who is gus . And who is flora. Gus is a freed slave. But he is a white man in black face. And i think he embodies, because hes lusting after florida, a maiden virginal young white girl and i think this is flora cameron . Yes flora cameron. Who is a part of the cameron family. We saw her brother. Yeah who fought for the confederacy. And gus i think is again the symbol of what any black man according to griffith is after, and that is a white woman. And so he spends it is one of the most famous scenes in the movie, the socalled gus chase scene because he gus confronts flora and says i want you basically and flora pushes him away and wants nothing to do with him and gus chases after her and it goes on for five or six minutes. We have a couple of minutes of it so lets watch it so peek can see what we are talking about it. Okay. Who is that that just ran in . That is her brother men cameron who is she is missing and he is searching for her. And gus is an ex slave and he is a southerner . A southerner. And they are in South Carolina . Yes. And shes running away. How does her brother . Her brother knows gus is trying to find her . He found her scarf. She is missing. She was supposed to be home and what not. And they had trouble with gus a little bit earlier in terms of him being predatory stalking flora. And she would rather go to the edge of a cliff. And see how he is hunched over. There is something gorilla like him, apelike. And that is port of his portrayal. Yeah. Gets down more on the ground. Still cant find his sister . No. And rather than submit to guess, the maiden flora would prefer to jump to her death. How important is the gus part of this whole story in the three hours . Well, it is usually important it is hugely important because it does capture dramatically because that scene had a huge impact on the audience. They were horrified that this innocent virginal young girl flora would have to jump to her death to escape the clutches of a black man. It was so inflammatory in so many different ways. This was the scene that the black protesters trotter of their list of problematic moments, this was always number one. You said that in boston, and they tried to stop it in boston, trotter did, but the movie actually played 365 days. 360 showings. Not 365 days, 360 performances because they had matinees. And how much did it cost in those days to go to the movies . Again there were the nickelodeons, but 25 cents or what not. But griffith charged the unheard of price of 2. Back then . Back then. You could get in you could find corner quarter seats at times but the prevailing price at boston and beyond was 2. And people he was filling the theaters matinees, they had extra performances. Yeah, it blew everyone away. And i would ask you how many times you had seen it . You said two. Three in connection with the book. I watched it beginning to the end, but ive watched it in pieces. Gus chasing flora i cant tell you how many times ive seen that. And this is the fighting with an africanamerican shooting the white man in the back and gus flees. This is just a minute. Well watch this. Okay. You were say david dukes the one man fighting off several blacks. This is what david duke was jumping up and down about. What is the purpose of this white guy coming into and there are all blacks in this . Looking for gus . They are looking for gus and also gus shooting the white guy. Yeah now hes wanted. The lawlessness of blacks. And the idea that a white man could lick all of those blacks in that room . Yes. Until he pulled out a gun and shot him down. How effective was Monroe Trotter in stopping anything in regard to this . Did he get anything changed in the movie . Not of any real substance. In the boston hearings before mayor James Michael curry the legendary boston mayor currently in the end disappointed trotter by saying the movie could go on and contextually trotter had every reason to expect curly coined the phrase banned in boston in a number of ways. But discussing curly told griffith that was the one scene that gave him a bit of a pause. And he asked griffith if he would trim that a bit and griffith gave him some lip service as he did in other cities and he was tinkering with his film and he would make cuts and he said he did and he would restore it. It was a living document so to speak. But i think trotter wasnt able to stop the film or change it in any real way. But what he did accomplish and the other protesters and who were part of the local branch of the naacp was to certainly draw attention to the movie as not representative of their race. That this they understood the boys being one of them, they will help sell tickets by causing controversy and demonstrating against the film but the alternative was worse to stand by silently and let this movie that griffith claims is history be unchallenged view of the civil war of blacks in america. That was intolerable to them. How long were you with the boston globe. For 19 years. What are you doing now. I teach journalism at boston university. How many students. About 30 or 40. And what do you teach. Journal and writing and a course on ethics. How many of your students watch this film . I dont know. Ive talked about it in class. Theyve heard me talk about it in the last few years as i worked on this project. Some of them never heard of it which surprises me. And im in the college in communications and im home of the Television Department and this is still taught in the American History survey course. Here is a clip of the ku klux klan bringing gus, socalled, to justice. A minute and 15. Lets watch. Sure. You can see why trotter and the other protesters were appalled by the film. Lieutenant governor was lynch. Lynch. Sent down by stoneman from peninsula or from washington, d. C. Sure. And gus, on his doorstep. The answer to blacks in carpet baggers. What happens to all of those i do want to ask you about Monroe Trotter and d. W. Griffith at the end of their lives. What happens in the movie to all of the characters . How many people died from the different families . I cant give you an actual head count. A number of the sons from both sides died during the war. The lieutenant ben cameron, he is on one of the horses under one of the hoods. As a result of his sisters death, flora, who jumps to her death, he founds the klan and the klan the climax of the movie is the klan portrayed as the savior of the south as a Healing Force. That is how griffith portrays the klan, as a Healing Force who brings order to the chaos created by freed slaves who are who are undeserving of freedom, of voting rights, of any trappings of civilized being. The klan rides to the rescue as some of the family members are trapped by in a cabin and being stalked by black troops and what not. I found this on you tube. This has absolutely no connection to your book and im not sure who the person is but her name is mercedes. Uhhuh. And i thought it would be interesting to run it because she is a black woman and a young woman and a critic of movies. Yes. And she decided in this case to critique this movie and lets watch a minute of sure. Oh, hi. Im mercedes. Today, im critiquing birth of a nation. This movie is a lot of stereotype. So if youre not comfortable with that, i would btnt suggest that you watch it. It shows black people in a really negative light. Theres one scene where they 5 00 clurl actually have a white actor in black face raping a white woman. A lot of times, youll see griffith displaying characters as one dimensional. Do i suggest you see this film . Absolutely. Historically, its still one of the mustsee films. However, the content is very racial. So be prepared. And its three hours long. Its pure fiction. Thats great. I like that. And, you know she talks about the portrayal of the stereotyping of blacks and whatnot. And the thing that always baffles me that, you know, because griffith defended this film. This is what he grew up learning about the war from his father. Was a great story teller and a confederate soldier. But all around him, when the protest is happening, hes been confronted by the likes of Monroe Trotter who righthand turn representarent rep zentded in any way. Its almost like how blind could grif fifty e griffith be that its one e onedimensional stereotyping all throughout the film. Theyre telling the director, this is not right. This is not whether or not he will story. This is not even the beginning of the story. When our local content vehicles move around the country, they do history on local areas. And this they found in waco, texas. This really happened in 1916 and our producer suggested that we look at this as a way of saying something that happened instead of the fiction of this movie. And he was mutilated, you know, in many different ways. And then they doused him in coal oil and started a fire at the base of the tree. And they would put him down in the fire and pull the chain and raise him up out of the fire so more people could see what was happening. And every time they did that, a big cheer went up as one reporter said as if the crowd had just come from a Football Game where they had won a huge victory. And, unfortunately he was a very strong young man and it took him a while to die. At one point, he even kicked himself off his funeral pyre and they had to drag him back on. But, finally all that was really left was a charred torso and some bits of limbs. Someone came by on a white horse and dragged the last of the remains around the street. And the head fell off and was put on the doorstep of a prostitute and little boys pulled out the teeth and sold them for 5 a piece. For unfortunately, that wasnt an uncommon scene in that period. Lynching was a national horror. It was something that was very much on the minds of the protesters trotter, the voice and the new naacp when griffiths film came out that this would inspire an already worrisome up tick in the number of lynchings. That was an Alarming Development of 1915. By 1915, klan had pretty much fizzled out. But by the end of this year, some kind of Film Campaign moved out and in early december of 1915, within days a man by the name of William Simmons saying later that he had been inspired by the movie took a number of confederates and they went to Stone Mountain and revived the klan. Are are you from originally . Connecticut. Where did you go to school . I recall went to harvard. So did Monroe Trotter. He did. He was a few years ahead of me. At the end, you talked about monroe, trotter and how he died. In terms of his career, 19 e 1915 was his high water mark. He founded that radical newspaper in 1901 to take on washingtons conciliatory accommodation civil rights strategy. And to assert a more direct we have to get in the white mans face. We have to get histories. The protests around this movie in 1915, that i hadre article kooifl photos in boss ton newspapers. And, in my research, im going what year is this again . 1915 or 1960 something . So he was in many ways ahead of his time. But, 1915, after that, a cup 8 things happened. 4iz wife died in 1918 from the flu pandemic. The other thing, he was overshadowed by the naacp. Which he would not join. 1915 turns out to be a hugely pivotal year in the naacp gaining traction. Look at the numbers at the beginning of the years and at the end. I dont have them on my fingertips. The number of new members, many of which a lot of which occurred because a lot of the protest against this movie as it moved throughout the country. It was a break out year for the naacp. But trotter would not be part of it. He felt very strongly that it could be integrated but it wasnt run by blacks. He felt that sent a wrong message. So, in his last few years he made it into the 1930s and he was in his early 60s. He was a broken man. Health wise, he was coming apart. The paper was barely making it out. He lived on his own in a rooming house. He was known to be agitated and worrisome and would walk around the flat roof that they had triple deckers in boston. And he either slipped or fell to his death. Was e it was on his birthday. Theres a lot of the early reports in the paper that said he jumped. It was a suicide. The family always said he would never do that. I think thiss a strong case that could be made that the timing of it on his birthday and what not, he was Failing Health that he may well have jumped to his death. How long did d. W. Give filth . He lived a bit longer. I cant remember off the top of my head how old he was when he died. But he retired and lived in hollywood for a number of years. Did he ever have another success . Not like birth of a nation. He indisputedly and deservedly has a place in American History. Got another book youre writing . I do, actually. Im always working on something. Can you tell us what it is . No not now and you did how many books on bulger . Two books. Theres kwt black mass, which is essentially about whiteys corrupt ties to the f. B. I. And then its sequel called whitey. A full blown big ra fill. Name of the book is birth of a nation how a legendary film maker and a crew saiding editor reignited americas civil war. As we close out, were going to run near the very end just a minute or so so people can see how this movie ended. And it can be watched by anybody on youtube if you want to see it