Followed by a brief q a should there be time for us to do that. I am so pleased tonight to introduce two of our friends and colleagues, the first being dr. Saje mathieu. Dr. Mathieu is an associate professor of history at the university of minnesota. She is just finishing a faculty fellowship at Harvard Universitys center for studies in American History. She earned a joint phd in history and africanamerican studies and specializes in 20th century american and africanAmerican History with an emphasis on immigration, war, race, globalization, social movements and political resistance. She is the author of a number of books, one of which is available outside and i would encourage you to grab a copy while you can. An oncoming book as well, the glory of their deeds a global history of black soldiers in the great war era. And saje was working on that book as part of your work at the warren center. Are we close to publication . I started it when i was five. So it is almost done. Really saje i
1915 film of the same name. Isnt that a great start . Why the birth of a nation and what is it . Is considered the first blockbuster film. The story i want to tell is not only the making and release of the film in 1915 but the controversy that it provoked. It is mainly a story about a civil rights leader from a boston by the name of William Monroe trotter, a radical newspaper editor as well who was at the forefront of extensive protest action against this bill about civil war and reconstruction which is entirely races in his per trail of black america. If it were to come out today what would happen . I hope it would not get censored but i hope there will be lots of protest drawing attention to the racism at the heart of the story and in griffiths hands. We are going to do a minute am a want to show the opening of this if people have not seen it in what it looks like. It is three hours. Lets watch. [video clip] the first minute, what did we just the . We showed griffith, the first thing