History 261 Discussion 3B: Documents on Redemption/Jim Crow
The assignment for the second section meeting of Week 3 includes discussion of Birth of a Nation (the short version), which can be watched at the Jan. 13 class screening or on the CTools site, and a set of accompanying documents.
Birth of a Nation was released in 1915 and directed by D.W. Griffith, who based the film on two Thomas Dixon novels, The Leopard's Spots (1902) and The Clansman (1905). The Dixon/Griffin portrayal reflected and reinforced the interpretations of the Dunning School, a group of academic historians who rewrote the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction by romanticizing the Old South, emphasizing the tragedy of "Negro rule," and supporting North-South reunification through a national embrace of Jim Crow. The Dunning School interpretation remained influential from the late 1800s until World War II, including the approaches found in high school textbooks.
Assigned documents in addition to the film
1. Read these three links
"Birth of a Nation and Black Protest" (background information)
"The Negro Uprising," Chapter 14 of Thomas Dixon, The Leopard's Spots
"NAACP Official Calls for Censorship of Birth of a Nation (1915)
2. Find two newspaper articles about Birth of a Nation from either the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune, and two newspaper articles from the Chicago Defender (an African-American newspaper). After locating them in the ProQuest online database, print them out, read them and think about them comparatively, and bring them to section discussion.
First, go to MIRLYN's database: Search Tools
Enter "ProQuest Historical Newspapers" in the "Search" box. Click on that link, and you should be on the main ProQuest site. Under the "Database" option box, scroll down and click on "News – The Historical Chicago Defender." In the "Basic Search" box, enter "Birth of a Nation" (in quotation marks so that the keyword search is for the whole phrase together). For "Date Range," set the search parameters from "01/01/1915" to "12/31/1915". Then hit return. Scroll through the article titles that appear, looking for interesting articles that cover the film and/or the protests about it, and then select a couple pdf files to read and print. Don't restrict yourself to the first ten articles that appear, because you can scroll through and search for the entire year.
Second, do the same thing for an establishment newspaper by choosing one of these two titles from the "Database" box: "News – The Historical Chicago Tribune" or "News – The Historical New York Times". Use the same parameters for the keyword search and the date range, and find two additional articles about the film and/or the controversy.
3. The popularity of Birth of a Nation raises questions about the relationship between region and nation, about differences and similarities between North and South and West, in the history of the United States. Was the South racially distinctive during the post-Reconstruction period that saw the rise of Jim Crow segregation, or were regional and national trends converging?
Go to this website: "The History of Jim Crow"
Feel welcome to explore this large database, but for discussion link to the "Geography" section. Direct link:
"Geography: The History of Jim Crow" (inside the South)
After clicking on several of these southern states to get a sense of the timing and nature of Jim Crow laws, click on the "Outside the South" link on the left-side menu. Click on individual states to look at the segregation and civil rights laws passed there (you don't need to look at every state, just get a good feel for regional and national patterns). Direct link:
Finally, look at the "Jim Crow Violence" link on the menu and click on several states and then cities to read descriptions of lynchings and other forms of mob violence, making sure to look at both southern and non-southern states/cities.