In the Shadow of The Birth of a Nation: Racism, Reception and Resistance

Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
1 Introduction
	Notes
Part I Creating a Racial Imaginary
2 The Architects of The Birth of a Nation: Thomas Dixon, Jr. and David Wark Griffith
	Elsie Stoneman in The Clansman—Contradictory Marking as White and Black
	Gus in The Clansman—Contradictory Marking as Human and Inhuman
	Lydia Brown—The Clansman—Contradictory Racial and Moral Markings
	Conclusion
	Notes
3 Blackface, Disguise and Invisibility in the Reception of The Birth of a Nation
	Notes
4 The Birth of a Nation’s “Melodrama of Pathos and Action”: A Tale of “National Rebirth”?
	“Moving” Pictures
	Engineering New Equations
	Theatrical Reunions
	Notes
5 The Battle of Petersburg: Griffith’s “Big Scenes”
	Notes
Part II Missing Texts
6 The Birth of a Nation Footage We Do Not Want to Find
	Epilogue
	Notes
7 Fixing The Birth of a Nation?: Hampton Institute and The New Era
	The Birth of a Nation in Boston
	The Hampton Epilogue: The New Era
	African American Responses to The New Era
	Notes
Part III Resistance and Protest
8 “A Most Serious Loss in Business”: Race, Citizenship and Protest in New Haven, Connecticut
	Notes
9 Resisting The Birth of a Nation in Virginia
	Norfolk and Richmond
	The Tuskegee Defense/The Hampton Fix
	Conclusion
	Notes
10 “At This Time in This City”: Black Atlanta and the Première of The Birth of a Nation
	The Birth of a Nation’s White Atlanta Premiere
		The Atlanta Quiet
	Notes
11 The Meaning of Emancipation: African American Memory as a Challenge to The Birth of a Nation
	Notes
Part IV Reception Abroad
12 Transatlantic “Structural Amnesia”: The Birth of a Nation in Britain 1915–16
	See the Development of a New Art—An Epoch in Dramatic History
	See the Regeneration of a Nation, as England Will be Reborn When the War is Over
	A Vivid, Graphic Story of Anglo-Celt Achievement Which Will Make Every Englishman, Woman and Child Glow with Pride, Gasp with Astonishment and Thrill with Marvellous Realism!
	Conclusion
	Notes
13 “Black Horror on the Rhine”: D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation and the French-occupied Rhineland after World War I
	Coda
	Notes
14 The Influence of The Birth of a Nation on South Africa: Film Culture and Race
	Sol T. Plaatje and Film
	De Voortrekkers and Visions of a White South Africa
	Notes
15 “Should It Not Therefore Be Banned?”: Screening and Broadcasting The Birth of a Nation in Britain
	Notes
Part V Epilogue
16 “Still a North and a South”: The Birth of a Nation and National Trauma
	“Why the Dogmatism? Why the Rage?”
	Ressentiment and the Lost Cause
	“Disorganizing Heresies” and Secessionist Fantasies
	“The Spirit of the South” and Melodrama
	Red States and Blue States
	Keeping Faith with Trauma
	Notes
Index