1915

The Birth of a Nation

Directed by D.W. Griffith
World premiere: 8 February 1915 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

The Birth of a Nation

“Classic or not, Birth of a Nation has long been one of the embarrassments of film scholarship. It can’t be ignored . . . and yet it was regarded as outrageously racist even at a time when racism was hardly a household word.” — Andrew Sarris

The Birth of a Nation on Home Video

Reviews of some of the many home video editions of The Birth of a Nation

Articles on The Birth of a Nation
(external links)

American Film Institute:
The Birth of a Nation

AMC Filmsite:
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
by Tim Dirks

Arizona State University:
The Birth of a Nation (1915): Integrating Race into the Narrator System
by Daniel Bernardi

Astor Theater:
Souvenir Booklet from D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915

Blogdanovich:
The Birth of a Nation
by Peter Bogdanovich

ChickenBones:
The Birth of a Nation: A Racist American Epic
by Amin Sharif

The Daily Beast:
The Fight to Ban ‘Birth of a Nation’

Roger Ebert:
Great Movie: The Birth of a Nation

HistoryNet:
The Birth of a Nation: When Hollywood Glorified the KKK
by Eric Niderost

Indiana University Press:
Myth and Fact: The Reception of The Birth of a Nation
by Arthur Lennig

The Journal of Religion and Film:
The Birth of a Nation as American Myth
by Richard C. Salter

Library of Congress:
The Birth of a Nation: Symposium on Classic Film Discusses Inaccuracies and Virtues
by Craig D’Ooge

Massachusetts Review:
“Birth of a Nation” — Propaganda as History
by John Hope Franklin

Michigan Today:
The Birth of a Nation
by Frank Beaver

Museum of Modern Art
D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation
by Charles Silver

The New Yorker:
The Worst Thing About “Birth of a Nation” is How Good It Is
by Richard Brody

OldMagazineArticles.com
The Birth of an Era
by Lillian Gish

PBS:
D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915)
by Richard Wormser

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media:
The Birth of a Nation and Black Protest

Some Came Running:
The Not-Entirely-Pure-Evil of “The Birth of a Nation”
by Glenn Kenny

Wikipedia:
The Birth of a Nation

Educational Study
(external links)

EDSITEment! (National Endowment for the Humanities):
Birth of a Nation, the NAACP, and the Balancing of Rights

Suggested Reading

The Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith, Director
edited by Robert Lang

The Birth of a Nation:
How a Legendary Filmmaker and a Crusading Editor Reignited America’s Civil War
by Dick Lehr

The Birth of a Nation
by Paul McEwan

D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation:
A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time
by Melvin Stokes