In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Birth of a Movement, silent film director D.W. Griffith, “at the top of his game,” is introduced to the book The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, by Thomas Dixon. When The Clansman became a stage play, its pro-KKK, “viciously racist” (according to Harvard historian David Blight) point of view resulted in protests and race riots — foreshadowing what was to come when Griffith adapted it into the film The Birth of a Nation.
Premiering Monday, February 6, 2017. Check local listings:
