4 Insanely Racist U.S. Moments (20th Century)

The Obama family has left the White House at the end of an eight year lease. No matter your politics anyone can recognize the historic significance of the first African-American President and racism's lingering legacy still today. But if not, join me in this look back at America's racist moments from just one-hundred years ago. My first entry marked its centennial anniversary in 2015 with the....

1. Most Racist Film Ever Made

Public Domain / Via wwww.imdb.com

In 1915 Hollywood had just released Birth of a Nation. Many students and Ph. D's of film study still consider it to have been the first major motion picture. It was directed by D.W. Griffith and starred Lillian Gish. This epic pioneered film techniques such as: panoramic long shots, iris effects, still shots, night photography, and was called the "Mightiest Spectacle Ever Produced". (IMDB)

Oh, and the title of the film's source novel "The Clansman" was rejected by the filmmakers for being "too tame". The final movie version was quite long and took up twelve reels in the days those were a thing. So let me sum up the high notes for you:

* Set in Reconstruction Era. Featured the birth of the "peaceful and just" Ku Klux Klan as defenders of the Aryan birthright and white daughters.

* Introduced cinema's least-subtly named movie villain, Silas Lynch, as a mixed-race politician seeking to oppress whites and molest said-white daughters.

* Depicted whites as an oppressed minority under the thumb of a black majority during Reconstruction Era. (In reality the opposite was true.)

* Plot featured the "Negro Party" as the film's "Hydra" infiltrators. The group took over the South Carolina government. The party's primary platform was to legally have sex with white women (YouTube Clip)

* Shoe-less blacks swigging whiskey and eating fried chicken on the South Carolina Senate floor.

Oh, and perhaps most noticeably:

* The director cast white actors to play African Americans. In black face.

Despite these scenes and heavy use of makeup the film's star, Gish, said she had no idea why anyone would consider her biggest break to be racist. (Biography-IMDB)

As far as we know she did not change her stance before her death in 1993 at age 99. Birth of a Nation held the record for Hollywood's highest grossing film up until Gone with the Wind reignited more African American stereotypes in cinema in 1939.

My next points will reveal that Birth of a Nation certainly lived up to its name. Doubtlessly it was the most important film of the twentieth century and a forgotten watershed moment in the decay of American race relations.

The film made an immediate impact by beginning a familiar American tradition just months later. As the forerunner of the "Netflix and Chill Era", Birth of a Nation was selected as first in the queue for the....

2. Original White House Movie Night

Birth of a Nation/CanStockPhoto / Via http://IMDB/canstockphoto.com

Yes, Birth of a Nation was the first film to be shown inside the White House.

The residence on Pennsylvania Avenue certainly lived up to its ironic moniker that night. Woodrow Wilson, then the first Southern President since 1848, screened it on March 21, 1915.(TIME)

During the screening of the KKK's top recruitment film of all time, Wilson allegedly said:

"It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

(Sources: PBS, Hollywood's White House, IMDB,TIME)

This controversial quote has been attributed to Wilson many times. It is impossible to know if he actually said it. Wilson immediately tried to distance himself from the public screening at the White House. He issued a statement that he had been unaware of the nature of the film and never actually endorsed it.

Historians are still divided on its veracity. Wilson's claims of ignorance have also come under heavy scrutiny due to the film's source novel. The author of the novel, The Clansman, was actually Wilson's good friend, Thomas Dixon. (NyTimes)

Wilson's friend Dixon had been much less vague about the purpose of his book turned film. He proudly said his story was intended to:

"revolutionize Northern audiences that would transform every man into a Southern partisan for life." (PBS)

And it is also worth mentioning that the film's director, Griffith, had featured a quote in his film from the President himself. In a primitive form of text messaging, Wilson's words had appeared in the silent film's title cards:

"The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation....until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern Country." - Woodrow Wilson, (Birth of a Nation)

So Wilson claimed he did not recognize racist intentions or endorse the movie. This was of course the same film he had screened at his residence. And was based on a book written by his friend. And projected his own words on the screen itself.

Birth of a Nation was highly popular outside the Oval Office too. It made an estimated ten million dollars, which was basically all the money ever printed by 1915. Successful films today inevitably lead to sequels, spin-offs, or the ever popular reboot.

One hundred years ago, Birth of a Nation's mainstreaming of racism had led to....

3. The KKK Reboot of 1916

Getty Images/ CanStockPhoto / Via canstockphoto.com

The greatest tragedy of Birth of a Nation was the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan.

The film had cast the Klan as heroes of the south. But prior to the film's release in 1915 the KKK was already a shell of its former glory and membership was at an all-time low. It had been written off by many as a defunct and forgotten white supremacist social club.

Then a trip to the movies reunited the "Not-So-Invisible Empire". Klansman had arrived to the all-day showings dressed in full robes and high-point hoods. This may actually have hindered the spread of their dogma for those sitting behind them. The high-turn outs of like-minded racists to movie theatres would prove to be an atrocious turning point of the 20th century that no one had predicted.

To skip ahead, Martin Luther King Jr. had named off several locations in his famous I Have a Dream speech in 1963. One of which was Stone Mountain, GA. Many students probably do not realize the historical context of this sight and its darker origins.

Stone Mountain was where the KKK experienced a Great Awakening and membership boom in 1916. This was just one year after Birth of a Nation had been released. Just ten short years later the KKK had gone from a forgotten footnote to a highly-connected and active organization with four million members (History.com)

At their height in 1928 the KKK had marched on Washington D.C. just as Dr. King would during the 1960's. The boom period of the Klan's revival, however, faded due to scandals. It is important to note that the Klan almost certainly would have died out much earlier. As Dixon had intended their racism persisted due to the highly attended film release despite the exorbitant $2 tickets. (YouTube: KKK March on D.C.)

The Klan in 2016 appeared uncomfortably like the one just prior to the 1916 resurgence. The SPLC's latest reports revealed that the organization consisted of only five to eight thousand members. There is little unity between them. Much like the 1915 Klan they cannot even agree just how to properly hate those who are different. Birth of a Nation gave the Klan a common identity and sense of pride that led to their Golden Age of highest popularity and mainstream acceptance. (SPLC)

However: One hundred years after the Stone Mountain Revival in 1916, 2016 saw a rise in the spread of the Ku Klux Klan's message and plans for increased membership ranks: (Associated Press) (FOX News)

During the Klan's active years the African community had consistently protested racist oppression as well. One notable case involved racial discrimination inside an urban city's zoo....

4. 1906's Black Zoo Exhibit

Facebook status: NYDailyNews/"Spectacle" by Pamela Newkirk/Harper Collins/NYU.EDU / Via harpercollins.com9780062201003

The title of this last entry does not refer to the color of the decor. Just over one-hundred years before the Obama family first moved into the President's quarters there was a protest over a Zoo in America.

It was over the small matter of family entertainment that featured humans in cages as public attractions. (The New York Times)

In 1906 a quarter-of-a million Americans that had flocked to the Bronx Zoo in New York City met Ota Benga. A New York Times headline trumpeted his arrival with: “Bushman Shares a Cage with Bronx Park Apes" on September 9th of that year. Benga was a star attraction in the Big Apple's primate exhibit. He was presented to viewers alongside apes and monkeys. As part of his act he was often forced to carry around chimpanzees on his back. (PopularResistance.org) (CNN.com) (theGuardian)

A tragic life as a zoo exhibit led to the death of Benga. He had grown extremely depressed and committed history's least surprising suicide. His death was highly deliberate and ritualistic. He had built a small ceremonial fire, chipped the caps of his teeth, and shot himself in the heart with a stolen pistol. He was 32 years old. (Encyclopedia Virginia)

If that was not tragic or unsettling enough the year was of his death was 1916.

The date is most likely a coincidence. I doubt he had been aware of his current events I listed above. But it certainly would not have helped the man forced to live as an ape to discover a movie had turned the world far more racist.

I would like to think the dehumanization of African-Americans as simians had long been abandoned by the 21st century. Unfortunately, Pamela Taylor, a now-former nonprofit director, had a different idea of how to honor the 100th anniversary of Benga's suicide.

In response to the 2016 Presidential election she decided to go online and compare then First Lady, Michelle Obama, to an “Ape in Heels”.

In case that had not been sufficient, her town's Mayor, Beverly Whaling, immediately liked the post. The elected official said that it had, "made her day". Though having attended the Woodrow Wilson "School of Racist Backtracking" she later clarified to have meant the election results of 2016. (BBC)

Much like star Lillian Gish, both of the Clay County residents claimed they had no idea the comment would be taken as racist. I hope they find a way to read about Benga in between searching Monster.com and LinkedIn for new job listings. (Washington Post)

* In Conclusion:

No matter your politics anyone can understand and respect the lessons from America’s dark, and recent, past. The previous century alone should have delivered a clear message. We must never forget the short years it took for racism and subjugation to grow out of control. This is not my speculation. You have read here how a movie in the 20th century changed the culture on a profoundly macro level. Even Ron Burgundy never could have imagined how the oppression, violence and unadulterated hatred between humans fired up over a silent film could have escalated so quickly.

* Special Thanks: Special thanks to my professor Dr. Kevin Hall at the University of North Alabama for our talks on Birth of a Nation that led to this list article. And a special shout-out to my longtime friend and Wicket, Steifon Passmore, for his encouragements.

By: Jay Sandlin I am the the History Guy, Nerd, Fiction/Non-Fiction Writer, and All-Day Dad! Follow me @JSandlinWriter and visit me at www.JaySandlinWriter.com. Stay tuned for my upcoming alternate history book series. With superheroes!

(More on the tragic and amazing life of Ota Benga can be found in Pamela Newkirk's book: Spectacle)