by Dick Lehr
First published 2017
Dick Lehr chronicles the explosive clash between Monroe Trotter, a black journalist and activist, and D.W. Griffith, the acclaimed director behind The Birth of a Nation. When Griffith's 1915 film depicts the Ku Klux Klan as heroes and freed slaves as dangerous villains, Trotter launches a fierce campaign to ban the movie. The confrontation splits the nation along racial lines, with Hollywood defending artistic freedom while civil rights advocates demand censorship. Lehr traces the personal histories connecting these adversaries: Trotter's father served in a black Union regiment that marched into Charleston as Griffith's Confederate cavalry father retreated. The film reaches 25 million viewers while sparking violent protests nationwide. Trotter's crusade against the movie creates tactics that later civil rights leaders will adopt in the 1950s and 1960s. Lehr reveals how this forgotten battle over a single film shaped the emerging civil rights movement and defined the tension between free speech and equality that continues today.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, african-american, 21st-century, activism, film, american-history
Vibes: emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, historical-fiction
Setting: Charleston, Hollywood
Period: 1915
368 pages · Paperback · PublicAffairs
Content warnings: racism, violence