The Confederate Myth

American is a nation with few years of existence but with as much conflict within its borders as compared to other countries in the world. America’s founding and growth to power was done with the intent of white dominance, never intending for those who did much of the labor that kept the economy afloat-the enslaved black people. America’s hierarchy of blacks having nothing and no chance to become anything more was shaken with the Emancipation Proclamation and ensuing 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which intended for blacks and other minorities to have the same rights as their white counterparts who had held all the power. Resentment grew from the former slave states as the people they formerly owned began to get involved in politics and better
their race as a whole. D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation is the culmination of this time period’s strongly negative aversion to black societal involvement in what was believed to be the “white man’s world” through one of the most well filmed movies in the 20th century.
Griffith’s masterpiece is based on Thomas Dixon Jr.’s novel, The Clansman, which glorifies the essence and rise of the Ku Klux Klan, an American terrorist group who follow a creed of white Christian supremacy over all in response to blacks gaining freedom and rights. The film describes their creation by detailing two families intertwined in two distinct parts- the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction. Each half of the film follows the Camerons, who supported the Confederacy, and the Stonemans, who supported the Union, who remain involved with each other and were at odds with one another before uniting against their common enemy-the blacks. With the former Confederate soldier Ben Cameron forming the Ku Klux Klan in response to his younger sister Flora being killed by the animalistic Black soldier Gus, he and his new group lynch the murderer and proceed to restore their South Carolinian town to its rightful state of being in White control instead of Black. The dramatic storyline and filmography of this movie drew in audiences in crowds to see a film that was longer, highly well shot, and overall leagues better than any film released at this time in 1915. It earned Griffith many awards and box office success, but some did note his films racist and white supremacist overtones. The NAACP was such a group who protested the film’s showing but ultimately only helped it get blocked in a few larger cities. Those who opposed the film’s opening immediately cited the negative portrayals of blacks in the film, especially the stereotypes of the movie’s villains all being black. Some of the stereotypes seen in Birth of a Nation are the Mammy, Black Buck, Picaninnies, Uncle Tom, Faithful Souls, and Tragic Mulatto. With the Black Buck and Tragic Mulatto characters being embodied by Gus, Silas Lynch, and Lydia, viewers can clearly categorize them as villains due to their animalistic descriptions, behavior, and of course, skin coloring. Thus, the film did much in a detrimental fashion for blacks in American society due to the lasting impression the film created.
Birth of a Nation’s release allowed the dwindling KKK regain relevancy and increase their recruitment in droves. In the film, Birth of a Nation firmly makes the Klan out to be a heroic group despite their cruelty and known tendencies to murder blacks by empathizing with their beliefs-saving the white race from the incompetent and violent blacks who do not know their place in society. As stated by Michele Faith Wallace in her paper “The Good Lynching and “The Birth of a Nation”: Discourses and Aesthetics of Jim Crow, Birth of a Nation gave a younger generation false impressions on how Reconstruction occurred and its true actions on the country, specifically the South. Faith notes from historian James Loewen that “violence by whites against blacks, not the ignorance of the former slaves, was the chief problem of the postwar decade” (Wallace 95). Due to former slaves and their children having to integrate into an overall unwelcoming society, many Blacks tried to empower themselves by going to school, doing work for pay, and becoming involved in politics; all of these actions only serving to infuriate whites who believed that blacks would take retribution against them and try to disempower whites. This fear drove many whites to join the Klan in order to “protect” what they saw as their America and everything that the Anglo-Saxon race stood for. The immediate rise in KKK numbers correlated to the increased race riots and lynchings. The film was a fear monger that all Blacks would be animalistic antagonists who were only out to get hurt whites. Wallace describes these mobs as being “festive crowds, including women and young children, often turned out to witness these hangings, in which victims were sometimes tortured, slowly burned alive, or castrated, their body parts distributed among the crowds as keepsakes” (Wallace 94). Such groups were commonplace after the film, as whites wanted reassurance of their dominance and to make sure Blacks understood that they would never have power that they temporarily held during Reconstruction.
Several stereotypes seen throughout the film for different black characters were either seen as villains, Gus, Lydia, and Silas Lynch, or as good blacks, the obedient black servants like the Cameron’s mammy, the Uncle Tom and other Faithful Soul characters. The movie follows at least two illusions held by whites who believed that Reconstruction was one of the worst things that happened to the South with these categories in mind. The Plantation Illusion of the Antebellum Period is one, being full of kind and paternal masters with slaves being happy with their work and treatment with no wants to be freed. Everett Carter notes in his paper “Cultural History Written with Lightning: The Significance of The Birth of a Nation” that this illusion was engrained in American culture already from previous books and songs that became popular. He also adds that the very opening scene for Birth of a Nation perpetuates this idea along with introducing some stereotypical black characters with picaninnies playing, the young and classy Margaret Cameron being helped out of a carriage, Dr. and Mrs. Cameron on their grand plantation porch rocking and watching a picaninny play, and a very apparent Mammy character being pleased with her day’s goings so far (Carter 350). The dedicated black servants continued to believe in white domination over them from rejection Black Union soldiers, to cheering on Confederate troops, being disappointed in the Southern loss, and even rescuing Dr. Cameron later in the film from Reconstruction police (Carter 352). This illusion of Blacks being content makes the younger white public question whether slavery was as terrible as freed slaves swore it to be and discredits the suffering they went through. The second illusion is the Confederate Myth of blackness being a sin along with the obsession of white purity.
With mixed people being seen as terrible due to their existence being wrong, both Lydia and Silas Lynch are characterized by this belief due to their villainous behavior. Lydia was Austin Stoneman’s mulatto mistress who aspired to have power and be seen and treated the same as a white woman. She is treated as an exotic seductress for her sway over Stoneman and nuisance to other whites due to her constant trying to elevate her status. Silas Lynch is a mulatto politician from the North, taught by Stoneman who wanted him to gain office in South Carolina. Lynch is made to be seen as a shifty character in behavior and film lighting on him consistently being sinister. He is the epitome of evil when the audience realize he wants to marry Stoneman’s oldest daughter Elsie and he attempts to assault her. Both mixed characters have no redeeming qualities seen and this fits into Griffith and Dixon’s belief that even a drop of Black blood contaminates white purity. Another way white purity is exalted is when Gus, the Black soldier under Lynch’s command pursues Flora Cameron who ultimately kills herself by throwing her body over a cliff rather than be taken by
Gus.

CON-With then President Woodrow Wilson’s amazed opinion that Birth of a Nation was like “writing history with lightning”, much of the American public was swayed into viewing the film. The movie’s immediate impact caused race riots, an increase in lynching, and most lasting-the enforcement of negative stereotypes that follow blacks today in the 21st century. Though the film did revolutionize filmography, it did so by pushing white supremacy along with the loss of black dignity and perception in media and to the public.