© Created by Joe Burton/www.burtonshistory.com

The Birth of A Nation 1915

"The agony which the South endured that a nation might be born…"

"The blight of war does not end when hostilities cease."

2 - The Birth of A Nation (Lesson Plan)

Focus Standards[What Will Students Know and Be Able to Do As a Result of This Lesson]

Gain Evidence through Research Leading to Higher Thinking Skills in relation to the Effects of The Film.

Learning Target The Results and Political Impact of The Birth of A Nation on American History and Racism.

Anticipatory Set

The Set: Provide Continuity From the Previous Lesson - Whet The Classes Appetite for The New Lesson at Hand.

Objective: The students will show that they understood and learned the goals of this lesson through a variety of learning modules… including worksheets, collaboration, lesson presentations, and created illustrations.

Core Vocabulary: Guerrilla Warfare, Prote’ge’, NAACP, Lascivious, Bestial War, Orthodox, Fruit of Islam

Guided PracticePractice: Create an Environment That Encourages Inquiry… Allow Time to Use Language, Negotiate the Meaning of The Language, and Practice New academic Vocabulary by inserting it into classroom language and discussion.ESL Strategies: Use of Multiple Modes and Academic Supports… Language, Gestures, Graphic Organizers, Drawings, and Technology.

Independent Practice

Practice: Overall Picture of Lesson by Engaging the Main Points Through Causes and Effects Leading to The National Backlash to the Film.Grammar: Listening… Speaking… Reading… Writing… and Language Evaluation by focusing on grammar and mechanics (or “conventions”) as they relate to his specific lesson.Spelling: Work on Grade-Level Phonics Only - then Word Analysis Skills by Decoding Words. “Read… Decode… Distinguish… and Then Recognize in order for the students to use their knowledge to engage in the application of the newly formed Foundational Skills in Order to Support Their Specific Reading and Writing Levels in order to comprehend the meaning and purpose of this lesson.Writing: Writing About Specific Points of Information Leading up To The Spanish-American War

Diffferentiation

[How Will You Ensure That All Students Have Access to And Are Able to Engage Appropriately in The Controversy of This Lesson?]{Consider All Aspects of Student Diversity when discussing this subject}

Essay Responses…Student Voice/Choice (for Less Able Writers)… Grammar Skills Focusing on Clear Communication, Rehearsal Skills for Success in Writing through Both Reading and Writing… Using Synectics: Spark… Create… and then Think.

RTI Holding Students to High Expectations Regardless of Background Through Challenging All of the Above Aspects in The Classroom

Modifications Accommdations

Oral Instructions… Record a Lesson, instead of Taking Notes… Have a Fellow Student Share Class Notes… Outline The Lesson… Visual Presentation(s)… Word Webs… Visual Organizers… Written List of Instructions as A Handout.

Main Resources http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/11/birth-of-a-nation-centennial-symposium.shtml, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_birth.html

Relevance & Rationale (CCR)Beginning of Lesson… State the Relevance of What is being taught… Explain How The Lesson Connects to Our present World… Asking Questions that Prompt Contextual Reflection… Engaging in Activities That Focus on The Relevance of What Is Being Learned.

Formal Assessment(s) As Lesson Progresses… Daily… Weekly… Unit… Quarterly… Annually - results are used as an ongoing teaching/learning strategy in order to improve students' achievement of intended instructional outcomes

Reflection

3 - Learning Outline on Spanish-American War (Do)

50 Minutes Materials Needed - LCD Projector, Overhead Project, Surround Sound Speaker System, Overhead Screens, Paper, Pencil

Objectives

TSWBAT write, explain, or answer quiz questions on previous lesson leading up to this one. TSWBAT explain the reasoning behind D.W. Griffith making this movie.TSWBAT discuss the roles of the Stoneman’s and the Cameron’s.TSWBAT explain the Impact of this movie on Post Civil War America/Reconstruction.TSWBAT explain the Controversy of being a Guerrilla Fighter during The Civil War.TSWBAT explain the reasons for the Meeting with President Lincoln.TSWBAT explain the Reasons for Interpreting the Results of Reconstruction Correctly.

Setting the Stage1. Discuss how Woodrow Wilson revealed His Racial Feelings after The Film was Produced.2. Discuss the Role of the KKK in The Movie.3. Discuss the Reasons that Gus was The Central Figure in The Movie.

Discussion & Collaboration Assignments

1. Determine the Causes and Effects of The Racial Unrest that The Movie caused across America.2. Determine what role the Media played in encouraging the negative stereo-types of The Movie.

Construct Give two Political Views created by The Movie - The Birth of A Nation.

Groups Assignment Research and discuss today’s lecture, along with your notes and any discussion that applied to The Birth of A Nation - then construct a group (250 Word) paper telling me how The Movie helped to awaken America to Racial Stereotypes.

Journal Attach the other student papers from your daily assignments and then turn in the packet for a check grade and then place in your notebook.

Exit Assignment List Three Main Points of Today’s Lesson

“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.”

– [Quoting from Woodrow Wilson’s History of the American People.]

4 - Content Standards for U.S. History (Study)

The Students WillIdentify important people and events in order to analyze significant patterns, relationships, themes, ideas, beliefs, and turning points as they could possibly relate to New Mexico, the United States, and The World. This is done in order to interpret and understand the complexity of the human experience in as it relates to New Mexico, the United States, and The World over time.

H-B-9-12.1 United States History Performance Standards - Analyze and Discuss the Impact of The Birth on A Nation on American Society.

I. Research & Know The Significance of The Militia in The Movie.

II. Research & Know The Effect of NAACP protests against The Movie.

III. Research & Know What was meant by the phrase “Gangs of Whites” as it relates to The Movie and its Outcome?

IV. Research & Know The Importance of what Arthur Link wrote about The Movie.

V. Research & Know The significance of two dates discussed in The Movie … 1918 & 1919.

VI. Research & Know The Impact of The Reversal Scene in The Movie.

VII. Research & Know The Role of The Ku Klux Klan in The Movie.

Exit Assignment List Three Main Points of Today’s Lesson

"Griffith wanted to do something very big… he was a man of the South from Kentucky. His father had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. What bigger story to tell as a breakout, epic film than the story of America's Civil War and its aftermath?" His understanding of the past was based on a twisted account, and today it's easy to imagine that a movie like this would flop and be forgotten. But The Birth of a Nation, far from falling into oblivion, actually led to the birth of Hollywood.

D.W. Griffith (right) introduces two families in this film: the Northern Stonemen’s, consisting of an abolitionist Congressman Austin Stoneman, his two sons… and his daughter, Elsie Stoneman… and the Southern Cameron’s, a family including two daughters (Margaret and Flora) and three sons, most notably Ben Cameron.

The Stoneman Boy’s visit the Cameron’s at their South Carolina Estate (in the Old South). The eldestStoneman falls in love with Margaret Cameron, and Ben Cameron idolizes a photo of Elsie Stoneman.

When the Civil War begins, all the young men (North & South) join their respective armies. A Black Militia (with a white leader) ransacks the Cameron House. TheCameron women are rescued when Confederate soldiers rout the Black Militia.

Meanwhile, the youngest Stoneman and two Cameron boy’s are killed in the war. Ben Cameron is wounded after a heroic battle in which he gains the nickname, “The Little Colonel,” by which he is referred to for the rest of the film.

“To watch his work is like being a witness to the beginning of a melody, or the first conscious use of a lever or a wheel; the emergence, coordination, and first eloquence of language; the birth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man.”

– James Agee

5 - Pre-Civil War America

The Little Colonel (Ben Cameron) is taken to a Northern hospital where he meets Elsie Stoneman, who is working there as a nurse.

In the hospital, Cameron is accused of being a Guerrilla Fighter (Outlaw) and is told that he will be hanged.

Elsie encourages Cameron’s mother, who has traveled to Washington D.C. to see her son, to ask Abraham Lincoln to grant Ben a presidential pardon. Elsie and Mrs. Cameron visit the White House and convince Lincoln to issue the pardon (top left).

The war ends and Abraham Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater (bottom left), allowing Austin Stoneman and other radical congressmen to punish the South for secession, using radical measures D.W. Griffith depicts as typical of the Reconstruction Era.

6 - The Little Colonel

Actual Scenes From the Movie ‘Birth of A Nation’

Stoneman and his Mulatto (a person of mixed white and black ancestry, especially a person with one white and one black parent) prote’ge,’ Silas Lynch, go to South Carolina in 1871 to observe the expanded franchise. Black soldiers through the streets.

During the election, whites are shown being turned away while blacks stuff the ballot boxes. The newly elected mostly Black Legislature, shown at their desks (top right) with various members taking off their shoes and putting their feet up on the desks…

…eating peanuts, and drinking liquor, passing laws requiring white civilians to salute black officers and allowing mixed-race marriages.

Meanwhile, Ben Cameron, inspired by observing white children pretending to be ghosts to scare off black children, devises a plan to reverse the perceiv-ed powerlessness of Southern Whites by forming the Ku Klux Klan (bottom right).

Elsie Stoneman is angered by his membership in the this radical new group.

7 - Reconstruction

8 - The Birth of A Nation (Literacy)

The National Association of The Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909 protested premieres of this film in numerous cities. It also conducted a public education cam-paign, publishing articles’ protesting the film’s fabrications and inaccuracies, organizing petitions against it, and conducting education on the facts of The War and Reconstruction.

When the film was shown, riots broke out in Boston, Phila-delphia and other major cities. Chicago, Denver, and KansasCity, Missouri, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, Missourirefused to allow the film to open. The film’s inflammatory char-acter was a catalyst for gangs of whites to attack blacks. In La-fayette, Indiana, after seeing the movie, a white man murdered ablack teenager.

Thomas Dixon, author of the source play ‘The Klansman,’ wasa former classmate of President Woodrow Wilson at Johns Hopkins University, Dixon arranged a screening at the White House, forWilson, members of his cabinet, and their families. Wilson was re-ported to have commented of the film that “it is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”

In the political magazine “The New Freedom,” Arthur Link quotes Wilson’s aide, Joseph Tumulty, who denied Wilson said this… also claims that “the President was entirely unaware of the nature of the playbefore it was presented and at not me has express his appro- bation (approval or praise) of it.”

However, Woodrow Wilson’s ‘History of The American People’ explained the Ku Klux Klan of the late 1860’s as a natural out-growth of Reconstruction, a lawless reaction to a lawless periodin our history.

Wilson noted that the Klan “began to attempt by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the ballot box or by any ordered course of public action.” In the film, approbation forthe Klan, after citing Wilson’s past statements, is directly quoted.

Relentless in publicizing the film, Dixon was apparently thesource for the actual quotation. It has been repeated so often in print that it has taken on a separate life. Dixon went so far as to promote the film as “Federally Endorsed.” After controversy over the film had grown, Wilson wrote that he disapproved of the “unfortunate production.” D.W. Griffith responded to the film’s negative critical reception with his next film … ‘Intolerance.’

In 1918 Emmett J. Scott helped produce and John W. Nobledirected ‘The Birth of A Race’ in response. In 1919, director/pro-ducer/writer Oscar Micheaux released the movie …’Within Our Gates,’ another response. Notably, Micheaux reversed a key scene of Griffith’s film by depicting a white man assaulting a black woman.

Today, many historians interpret The Birth of A Nation as beinga product of anti-black racism of the early twentieth century, by which many Americans held that black Americans were unequalas citizens.

1. Who were the Stoneman’s...2. Who were the Cameron’s...3. Who fell in love with Margaret Cameron...4. What did Ben Cameron Idolize...5. What group ransacked the Cameron home...

6. Who rescued the Cameron women...7. Meanwhile, who was killed in the war…8. Who was ‘The Little Colonel’ ...9. How did ‘The Little Colonel’ get his nickname...10. Where did Ben finally meet Elsie...

11. Why did the Northerners want to hang Ben...12. Why did Elsie and Ms. Cameron visit the White House…13. What happened after Lincoln was assassinated...14. What did Griffith to a good job in depicting...15. How did J.W. Noble respond...

16. How did O. Micheaux respond...17. How did Micheaux reverse a scene...18. Many historians feel that Birth of Nation is...19. Many Americans felt that blacks were...20. Some felt that they were not even...

9 - Literacy Questions

The National Association for The _________ of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, protested premieres of the film (The Birth of A Nation) in _______ cities. It also conducted a public education campaign, publishing articles' _______ the film's ________ and inaccuracies, organizing petitions against it, and conducting _______ on the facts of the war and __________.

When the film was shown, ______ broke out in Boston, Philadelphia and other major cities. Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, ________ and St. Louis... these cities refused to allow the film to open. The film's _________ character was a catalyst for gangs of whites to attack ______. In Lafayette, Indiana, after seeing the movie, a white man murdered a black ______.

Advancement

blacks

education

fabrications

inflammatory

New York

numerous

Pittsburgh

protesting

Reconstruction

Riots

teenager

10 - Fill in The Blank Review

“Although Griffith moved on with his life after the protests, issues surrounding the film did not. The Birth of a Nation was re-released in 1924, 1931, and 1938, so it remained in the minds of film lovers and human rights activists for decades.”

Gus, a former slave who became educated and gained a title of recognition through the army, proposes to marry Flora Cameron. Scared by Gus' lascivious advances, she flees into the forest (top left), pursued by Gus. Trapped on a precipice, Flora leaps to her death.

In response, The Klan (KKK) hunts Gus, tries him and finds him guilty, kills him, and leaves his corpse on Lieu-tenant Governor Silas Lynch's doorstep. In retaliation, Lynch orders a crackdown on the Klan.

The Cameron’s flee from the black militia and hide out in a small hut, home to two former Union soldiers, who agree to assist them. As stated in the intertitle… “The former enemies of North and South are united again in defense of their Aryan birthright.”

Meanwhile, with Austin Stoneman gone, Lynch tries to force Elsie Stoneman to marry him. Disguised Klansmen discover her situation and leave to get reinforcements. The Klan, now at full strength, rides to her rescue and takes the opportunity to disperse the rioting blacks.

11 - Gus and Flora In-Depth

Simultaneously, Lynch's militia surrounds and attacks the hut where the Cameron’s are hiding, but the Klan saves them just in time. Victorious, the Klansmen cele-brate in the streets.

The film shows the Klan disarming the Blacks (previous slide - bottom left), and then cuts to the next election day, where blacks emerge to meet a line of mounted Klansmen just outside their homes, and go back in defeat.

The film concludes with a double honeymoon of Phil Stoneman with Margaret Cameron and Ben Cameron with Elsie Stoneman. The final frame shows masses oppressed by the mythical God of War suddenly finding peace under the image of Christ.

The final title rhetorically asks: "Dare we dream of a golden day when Bestial War shall rule no more? But instead-the gentle Prince in the Hall of Brotherly Love in the City of Peace?”

12 - The Finale

W. E. B. Du Bois and other black historians vigorously disputed this interpretation when the film was released. Most historians of all backgrounds today agree with them, as they note African Americans' loyalty and contributions during the Civil War years and Reconstruction, included the establishment of universal public education.

Some historians, such as E. Merton Coulter in his The South Under Reconstruction (1947), maintained these views after World War II.

Veteran film reviewer Roger Ebert wrote…

“…stung by criticisms that the second half of his masterpiece was racist in its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan and its brutal images of blacks, Griffith tried to make amends in Intolerance (1916), which criticized prejudice. And in ‘Broken Blossoms’ he told perhaps the first interracial love story in the movies - even though, to be sure, it's an idealized love with no touching.

The ‘Birth of a Nation’ is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of The Will,’ it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil.”

13 - In Closing

14 - The Nation of Islam Nearly a quarter of America’s Muslim population is African-American. Most worship as orthodox Muslims. From the 1930’s to the 1980’s, however, many belonged to a homegrown offshoot, the Nation of Islam, often called the “Black Muslims.” The movement gained a widespread following after 1930, when an Arab immigrant, W.D. Fard, began to preach that African-Americans needed to turn away from Christianity and embrace Islam - although the form of Islam taught by Fard and his African-American successor,Elijah Mohammad, differed from conventional Islam in many ways. With the rise of the African-American civil rights movement after WWII, the Nation of Islam grew in popularity in African-American communities. The movement stressed the necessity of self-help and moral conduct, but it also rejected integration of the races because of the inherent “evil” of the white race. The movement reached its height in the early 1960’s under the brilliant leadership of Malcolm X.’ After making a pilgrimage to Mecca (a religious requirement for Muslims), where he saw Muslims of all races worshipping together, Malcolm X’ began to turn toward Orthodox Islam; he was assassinate in 1965 by his fellow Black Muslims for his new inclusive ideology. Malcolm’s successor, Wallace D. Muhammad (Elijah Muhammad’s son) continued the trend toward Orthodox Islam and dissolved the movement in 1985, although a splinter group led Louis Farrakhan retains the name and earlier separatist beliefs.

Malcolm X speaks to a crowd at a rally in Harlem at E.115th St & Lexington Ave., in 1963.

15 -Elijah Muhammad

Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Robert Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, the seventh of thirteen children to William Poole, Sr., … a Baptist lay preacher and sharecropper, and Mariah Hall, a homemaker and sharecropper. Elijah's education ended at the fourth grade to work in sawmills and brickyards. To support the family, he worked with his parents as a sharecropper. When he was sixteen years old, he left home and began working in factories and at other businesses. Poole married Clara Evans on March 7, 1917. The Poole family was among the hundreds of thousands of black families forming the First Great Migration leaving the oppressive and economically troubled South in search of safety and employment. Poole later recounted that before the age of 20, he had witnessed the lynchings of three black men by white people. He said, "I seen enough of the white man's brutality to last me 26,000 years.” Moving his own family, parents and siblings, Elijah and the Pooles settled in Hamtramck, Michigan. Through the 1920’s and 1930’s, Poole struggled to find and keep work as the economy suffered during the Great Depression. During their years in Detroit, the Pooles had eight children, six boys and two girls. While he in Detroit, Poole began taking part in various Black Nationalist movements within the city. Most prominently, he joined the Universal Negro Improvement Association founded by Marcus Garvey. In August 1931, at the urging of his wife, Elijah Poole attended a speech on Islam and black empowerment by Wallace D. Fard. Afterward, Poole said he approached Fard and asked if he was the redeemer. Fard responded that he was, but that his time had not yet come. Fard taught that Blacks, as original Asiatics, had a rich cultural history which was stolen from them in their enslavement. Fard stated that African Americans could regain their freedoms through self-independence and cultivation of their own culture and civilization. Poole, having strong consciousness of both race and class issues as a result of his struggles in the South, quickly fell in step with Fard's ideology. Poole soon became an ardent follower of Fard and joined his movement, as did his wife and several brothers. Soon afterward, Poole was given a Muslim surname, first “Karriem" … and later, at Fard's behest, “Muhammad.” He assumed leadership of the Nation's Temple No. 2 in Chicago. His younger brother Kalot Muhammad became the leader of the movement's self-defense arm, the Fruit of Islam.

Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), speaks to the crowd at Detroit's Cobo Hall.

1.How did Gus gain his recognition...2. Why did Flora leap to her death...3. Why did the KKK hunt for Gus...4. Why did Lynch order the crackdown on the KKK...5. Why did the Cameron’s hide out in a small hut...

6. What is stated in the intertitle...7. Who tried to force Elsie Stoneman to marry him...8. Who rescues Elsie Stoneman...9. Who rescues the Cameron’s...10. Why did the Klansmen celebrate in the streets...

11. What did the film conclude with...12. What did final frame show...13. What was the significance of the image of Christ...14. What do/did most historians agree about…15. How did Griffith try to make amends...

16. Why was the Birth of A Nation a great film...17. Why did the Black Muslims gain a following in the 1930’s...18. Why did the Black Muslim movement become popular…19. When did the Black Muslim movement reach its height…20. Who is Louis Farrakhan and what does he believe...

The Fruit of Islam,’ a special group of bodyguards for Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad, sits at the bottom of the platform while he delivers his annual Savior’s Day message in Chicago. March 1964.

16 - Handout Questions

https://youtu.be/I3kmVgQHIEY

17 - Link to The Movie - ‘The Birth of A Nation’

Click on The Link Below to Watch The Movie in Its Entirety.