Birth of a Nation, 1915
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This “Advice Sheet” flyer was distributed with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to theaters when the film was released in 1915. Significantly, the distributors are adamant that “NEGROES MUST NOT BE ADMITTED . . . under any circumstance.” The film was a treatment of a novel and play, The Clansman, which depicted the Ku Klux Klan as heroes and African Americans as villains during Reconstruction. The deeply racist film attracted a wide audience and stirred controversy and protests from the newly created NAACP.
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