Download or read book Fighting a Movie with Lightning The Birth of a Nation and the Black Community written by Stefanie Laufs and published by Anchor Academic Publishing (aap_verlag). This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their efforts, black activists throughout the early 20th century were not able to achieve full equality and fair treatment in society. However, they gained a new way of thinking that resulted in the formation of the ‘New Negro’. This term, in essence, designates a new way of thinking in the black community. Its members were neither satisfied with, nor accepted their inferior position in society and were willing to fight for their rights. Phenomena that paradoxically had a positive impact on the black community as a whole, and especially on the New Negro, were the actions undertaken by African Americans all over the United States in response to D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 silent movie The Birth of a Nation. It is the aim of this paper to prove that these activities undertaken by African Americans and their supporters in the early 20th century against The Birth of a Nation influenced and shaped the black community as a whole, but especially the notion of the New Negro, both politically and culturally.

Download or read book The Birth of a Nation written by Dick Lehr and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1915, two men -- one a journalist agitator, the other a technically brilliant filmmaker -- incited a public confrontation that roiled America, pitting black against white, Hollywood against Boston, and free speech against civil rights. Monroe Trotter and D. W. Griffith were fighting over a film that dramatized the Civil War and Reconstruction in a post-Confederate South. Almost fifty years earlier, Monroe's father, James, was a sergeant in an all-black Union regiment that marched into Charleston, South Carolina, just as the Kentucky cavalry -- including Roaring Jack Griffith, D. W.'s father -- fled for their lives. Griffith's film, The Birth of a Nation, included actors in blackface, heroic portraits of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and a depiction of Lincoln's assassination. Freed slaves were portrayed as villainous, vengeful, slovenly, and dangerous to the sanctity of American values. It was tremendously successful, eventually seen by 25 million Americans. But violent protests against the film flared up across the country. Monroe Trotter's titanic crusade to have the film censored became a blueprint for dissent during the 1950s and 1960s. This is the fiery story of a revolutionary moment for mass media and the nascent civil rights movement, and the men clashing over the cultural and political soul of a still-young America standing at the cusp of its greatest days.

Download or read book Fighting a Movie with Lightning written by Stefanie Laufs and published by . This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, Free University of Berlin (John F. Kennedy Institut), course: American Studies, language: English, abstract: Despite their efforts, black activists throughout the early 20th century were not able to achieve full equality and fair treatment in society. However, they gained a new way of thinking that resulted in the formation of the 'New Negro'. This term, in essence, designates a new way of thinking in the black community. Its members were neither satisfied with, nor accepted their inferior position in society and were willing to fight for their rights. Phenomena that paradoxically had a positive impact on the black community as a whole, and especially on the New Negro, were the actions undertaken by African Americans all over the United States in response to D.W. Griffith's racist 1915 silent movie The Birth of a Nation. In spite of the many new features it offered to the film world, the movie portrayed the African Americans in such a bad light that the black community felt the film "was not only an insult to the colored race but was an incentive to race hatred and to lawlessness." African Americans did not accept these cliched depictions of their community and soon began to plan several activities, aimed at suppressing the movie nationwide, which significantly impacted the black community. It is the aim of this paper to prove that these activities undertaken by African Americans and their supporters in the early 20th century against The Birth of a Nation influenced and shaped the black community as a whole, but especially the notion of the New Negro, both politically and culturally.

Download or read book Race in American Film 3 volumes written by Daniel Bernardi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-07-07 with total page 1149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expansive three-volume set investigates racial representation in film, providing an authoritative cross-section of the most racially significant films, actors, directors, and movements in American cinematic history. Hollywood has always reflected current American cultural norms and ideas. As such, film provides a window into attitudes about race and ethnicity over the last century. This comprehensive set provides information on hundreds of films chosen based on scholarly consensus of their importance regarding the subject, examining aspects of race and ethnicity in American film through the historical context, themes, and people involved. This three-volume set highlights the most important films and artists of the era, identifying films, actors, or characterizations that were considered racist, were tremendously popular or hugely influential, attempted to be progressive, or some combination thereof. Readers will not only learn basic information about each subject but also be able to contextualize it culturally, historically, and in terms of its reception to understand what average moviegoers thought about the subject at the time of its popularity—and grasp how the subject is perceived now through the lens of history.

Download or read book Union written by Colin Woodard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Christian Science Monitor best book of 2020 "Relentlessly accessible. . . . This is that rare history that tells what influential thinkers failed to think, what famous writers left unwritten." --Jill Leovy, The American Scholar By the bestselling author of American Nations, the story of how the myth of U.S. national unity was created and fought over in the nineteenth century--a myth that continues to affect us today Union tells the story of the struggle to create a national myth for the United States, one that could hold its rival regional cultures together and forge an American nationhood. On one hand, a small group of individuals--historians, political leaders, and novelists--fashioned and promoted the idea of America as nation that had a God-given mission to lead humanity toward freedom, equality, and self-government. But this emerging narrative was swiftly contested by another set of intellectuals and firebrands who argued that the United States was instead the homeland of the allegedly superior "Anglo-Saxon" race, upon whom divine and Darwinian favor shined. Colin Woodard tells the story of the genesis and epic confrontations between these visions of our nation's path and purpose through the lives of the key figures who created them, a cast of characters whose personal quirks and virtues, gifts and demons shaped the destiny of millions.

Download or read book Childbirth and Parenting in Horror Texts written by Amanda DiGioia and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines childbirth and parenting in horror texts. By analysing new texts, and re-analysing commonly used texts with new feminist methodology, this study provides a unique contribution to the fields of gender and horror studies.

Download or read book The Clansman written by Thomas Dixon and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2009-11-25 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Books for All Kinds of Readers. ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, accessible format editions on the market today. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around the globe. Our goal is to have accessible editions simultaneously released with publishers' new books so that all readers can have access to the books they want to read.

Download or read book American Lightning written by Howard Blum and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-09-16 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come. In American Lightning, acclaimed author Howard Blum masterfully evokes the incredible circumstances that led to the original “crime of the century”—and an aftermath more dramatic than even the crime itself. With smoke still wafting up from the charred ruins, the city’s mayor reacts with undisguised excitement when he learns of the arrival, only that morning, of America’s greatest detective, William J. Burns, a former Secret Service man who has been likened to Sherlock Holmes. Surely Burns, already world famous for cracking unsolvable crimes and for his elaborate disguises, can run the perpetrators to ground. Through the work of many months, snowbound stakeouts, and brilliant forensic sleuthing, the great investigator finally identifies the men he believes are responsible for so much destruction. Stunningly, Burns accuses the men—labor activists with an apparent grudge against the Los Angeles Times’s fiercely anti-union owner—of not just one heinous deed but of being part of a terror wave involving hundreds of bombings. While preparation is laid for America’s highest profile trial ever—and the forces of labor and capital wage hand-to-hand combat in the streets—two other notable figures are swept into the drama: industry-shaping filmmaker D.W. Griffith, who perceives in these events the possibility of great art and who will go on to alchemize his observations into the landmark film The Birth of a Nation; and crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow, committed to lend his eloquence to the defendants, though he will be driven to thoughts of suicide before events have fully played out. Simultaneously offering the absorbing reading experience of a can’t-put-it-down thriller and the perception-altering resonance of a story whose reverberations continue even today, American Lightning is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.

Download or read book D W Griffith s the Birth of a Nation written by Melvyn Stokes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-15 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this deeply researched and vividly written volume, Melvyn Stokes illuminates the origins, production, reception and continuing history of this ground-breaking, aesthetically brilliant, and yet highly controversial movie. By going back to the original archives, particularly the NAACP and D. W. Griffith Papers, Stokes explodes many of the myths surrounding The Birth of a Nation (1915). Yet the story that remains is fascinating: the longest American film of its time, Griffith's film incorporated many new features, including the first full musical score compiled for an American film. It was distributed and advertised by pioneering methods that would quickly become standard. Through the high prices charged for admission and the fact that it was shown, at first, only in "live" theaters with orchestral accompaniment, Birth played a major role in reconfiguring the American movie audience by attracting more middle-class patrons. But if the film was a milestone in the history of cinema, it was also undeniably racist. Stokes shows that the darker side of this classic movie has its origins in the racist ideas of Thomas Dixon, Jr. and Griffith's own Kentuckian background and earlier film career. The book reveals how, as the years went by, the campaign against the film became increasingly successful. In the 1920s, for example, the NAACP exploited the fact that the new Ku Klux Klan, which used Griffith's film as a recruiting and retention tool, was not just anti-black, but also anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish, as a way to mobilize new allies in opposition to the film. This crisply written book sheds light on both the film's racism and the aesthetic brilliance of Griffith's filmmaking. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the cinema.

Download or read book Race and Reunion written by David W. BLIGHT and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America's collective memory as the Civil War. In the war's aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. David Blight explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America's national reunion.

Download or read book Hollywood As Historian written by Peter C. Rollins and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-03-17 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A commendably comprehensive analysis of the issue of Hollywood’s ability to shape our minds . . . invigorating reading.” ?Booklist Film has exerted a pervasive influence on the American mind, and in eras of economic instability and international conflict, the industry has not hesitated to use motion pictures for propaganda purposes. During less troubled times, citizens’ ability to deal with political and social issues may be enhanced or thwarted by images absorbed in theaters. Tracking the interaction of Americans with important movie productions, this book considers such topics as racial and sexual stereotyping; censorship of films; comedy as a tool for social criticism; the influence of “great men” and their screen images; and the use of film to interpret history. Hollywood As Historian benefits from a variety of approaches. Literary and historical influences are carefully related to The Birth of a Nation and Apocalypse Now, two highly tendentious epics of war and cultural change. How political beliefs of filmmakers affected cinematic styles is illuminated in a short survey of documentary films made during the Great Depression. Historical distance has helped analysts decode messages unintended by filmmakers in the study of The Snake Pit and Dr. Strangelove. Hollywood As Historian offers a versatile, thought-provoking text for students of popular culture, American studies, film history, or film as history. Films considered include: The Birth of a Nation (1915), The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936), The River (1937), March of Time (1935-1953), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Native Land (1942), Wilson (1944), The Negro Soldier (1944), The Snake Pit (1948), On the Waterfront (1954), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), and Apocalypse Now (1979). “Recommended reading for anyone concerned with the influence of popular culture on the public perception of history.” ?American Journalism

Download or read book Red Summer written by Cameron McWhirter and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A narrative history of America's deadliest episode of race riots and lynchings After World War I, black Americans fervently hoped for a new epoch of peace, prosperity, and equality. Black soldiers believed their participation in the fight to make the world safe for democracy finally earned them rights they had been promised since the close of the Civil War. Instead, an unprecedented wave of anti-black riots and lynchings swept the country for eight months. From April to November of 1919, the racial unrest rolled across the South into the North and the Midwest, even to the nation's capital. Millions of lives were disrupted, and hundreds of lives were lost. Blacks responded by fighting back with an intensity and determination never seen before. Red Summer is the first narrative history written about this epic encounter. Focusing on the worst riots and lynchings—including those in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Charleston, Omaha and Knoxville—Cameron McWhirter chronicles the mayhem, while also exploring the first stirrings of a civil rights movement that would transform American society forty years later.

Download or read book Stamped from the Beginning written by Ibram X. Kendi and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America -- it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.

Download or read book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry Puffin Modern Classics written by Mildred D. Taylor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-04-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Newbery Medal, this remarkably moving novel has impressed the hearts and minds of millions of readers. Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect. * "[A] vivid story.... Entirely through its own internal development, the novel shows the rich inner rewards of black pride, love, and independence."—Booklist, starred review

Download or read book D W Griffith written by Richard Schickel and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He transformed a nickelodeon novelty into a new art form and a powerful, glamorous American industry. He codified the rules and techniques of screen story-telling, and pioneered the conventions that brought films to life, from surging spectacle to soul-baring close-ups. A poor farm boy from the South, Griffith rose to fame with The Birth of a Nation, a cinematic masterpiece stained by the racism that infected his heritage. Though he went on to direct some of the most legendary films of the silent era, Griffith was doomed by his over-reaching drives, and he died an embittered man, shunned by the community he had largely created. His story is told here with unsparing truth and compelling narrative sweep.

Download or read book Fighting for America written by Christopher Paul Moore and published by One World. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African-American contribution to winning World War II has never been celebrated as profoundly as in Fighting for America. In this inspirational and uniquely personal tribute, the essential part played by black servicemen and -women in that cataclysmic conflict is brought home. Here are letters, photographs, oral histories, and rare documents, collected by historian Christopher Moore, the son of two black WWII veterans. Weaving his family history with that of his people and nation, Moore has created an unforgettable tapestry of sacrifice, fortitude, and courage. From the 1,800 black soldiers who landed at Normandy Beach on D-Day, and the legendary Tuskegee Airmen who won ninety-five Distinguished Flying Crosses, to the 761st Tank Battalion who, under General Patton, helped liberate Nazi death camps, the invaluable effort of black Americans to defend democracy is captured in word and image. Readers will be introduced to many unheralded heroes who helped America win the war, including Dorie Miller, the messman who manned a machine gun and downed four Japanese planes; Robert Brooks, the first American to die in armored battle; Lt. Jackie Robinson, the future baseball legend who faced court-martial for refusing to sit in the back of a military bus; an until now forgotten African-American philosopher who helped save many lives at a Japanese POW camp; even the author’s own parents: his mother, Kay, a WAC when she met his father, Bill, who was part of the celebrated Red Ball Express. Yet Fighting for America is more than a testimonial; it is also a troubling story of profound contradictions, of a country still in the throes of segregation, of a domestic battleground where arrests and riots occurred simultaneously with foreign service–and of how the war helped spotlight this disparity and galvanize the need for civil rights. Featuring a unique perspective on black soldiers, Fighting for America will move any reader: all who, like the author, owe their lives to those who served.

Download or read book Lightnin Hopkins written by Alan Govenar and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on scores of interviews with the artist's relatives, friends, lovers, producers, accompanists, managers, and fans, this brilliant biography reveals a man of many layers and contradictions. Following the journey of a musician who left his family's poor cotton farm at age eight carrying only a guitar, the book chronicles his life on the open road playing blues music and doing odd jobs. It debunks the myths surrounding his meetings with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Texas Alexander, his time on a chain gang, his relationships with women, and his lifelong appetite for gambling and drinking. This volume also discusses his hard-to-read personality; whether playing for black audiences in Houston's Third Ward, for white crowds at the Matrix in San Francisco, or in the concert halls of Europe, Sam Hopkins was a musician who poured out his feelings in his songs and knew how to endear himself to his audience--yet it was hard to tell if he was truly sincere, and he appeared to trust no one. Finally, this book moves beyond exploring his personal life and details his entire musical career, from his first recording session in 1946--when he was dubbed Lightnin'--to his appearance on the national charts and his rediscovery by Mack McCormick and Sam Charters in 1959, when his popularity had begun to wane and a second career emerged, playing to white audiences rather than black ones. Overall, this narrative tells the story of an important blues musician who became immensely successful by singing with a searing emotive power about his country roots and the injustices that informed the civil rights era.