April 17-21, 1915, Boston, Mass.- Boston
is not historically known as a racially harmonious city and in 1915 this was
certainly true. However it was also true that the controversial D.W. Griffith
film “Birth of a Nation” was surprisingly unwelcome in the city. Both
White and Black residents had spoken out and the White supporters and
membership of the NAACP chapter had meetings with the mayor on using the
existing state censorship laws to outright ban the film. The “Birthplace of
Liberty” was rejecting the false history presented by the film.
Griffith’s film was at least
partly based on the 1905 book “The Clansman” by Thomas Dixon Fr. Both the film
and the book were unapologetically pro-South and against the Reconstruction
era. In fact, this was one of major landmarks in the development of the “Lost
Cause” myth that romanticized the Antebellum South and the Confederacy. The
popularity of the film led the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in the post WWI
years through the early 1920s.
The film was protested by Black
citizens in over 60 cities, but this hadn’t made dent in it’s popularity among White
audiences. It didn’t help that President Woodrow Wilson had held a private
screening and seemed to be impressed with the film, although the often quoted, "It
is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so
terribly true, " is believed by Presidential historians to be false.
In Boston civil rights activist
and publisher of the Negro newspaper The Guardian William Monroe Trotter
had
been working with the NAACP to try and convince Boston Mayor James Curley to
get the film banned under the broad censorship laws of Massachusetts, they had
also approached Governor David I. Walsh, who had tried to get an emergency
injunction through the state legislature and failed. Trotter had not been in
the front of these actions because he wasn’t a supporter of either politician and
had stated that working within the system that didn’t offer civil rights to the
Black man wasn’t a system that could be trusted.
Trotter was the type of man who
considered abrasive by many and had already had a falling out with President
Wilson because he was radical, angry and Black. The Guardian was a paper that
supported Negro Rights and justice for Blacks. Trotter was against the accommodationist
policy of men like Booker T. Washington and spoke out against it. His falling
out with Wilson came when the two met to discuss why Wilson was segregating federal
employment in November of 1914. This meeting did not go well as Wilson was
committed to the segregation of government employees and saw no problem and
Trotter said it was insulting as it showed Wilson did not think the Black man
as equal. Wilson did not respond but told Trotter, "If this
organization wishes to approach me again, it must choose another
spokesman ... your tone, sir, offends me."
Despite the growing protest of Blacks and their White allies in Boston the Tremont Theater was committed
to showing "The Birth of a Nation". They had hung the Confederate flag
outside the theater. All week Trotter witnessed this way of attracting
viewers while hearing complaints of illegal discrimination. This was supported
by Trotter’s friend William D. Brigham who was White but had seen tickets
sellers tell Blacks that tickets were all sold out or the only ones left were
the more expensive ones in center stage.
So, Trotter decided that evening
to attend the film at the Tremont. About 7:00 pm Trotter
left his office with his friend Aaron William Puller, the minister of the
People’s Baptist Church. Word had spread and when the two civil rights leaders
intended to see the film. About 100 other Blacks had joined them walking to the
Tremont.
At 7:30 Trotter and Puller
entered the theater with about a dozen other Blacks. Trotter approached the
ticket counter and asked for a ticket. He was told that none were available.
Trotter responded by asking why there was nothing saying so. “’But you have no
sign out to that effect, neither here nor at the outer door, and I demand my
rights,” Trotter had said with low anger.
Then a White couple stepped up to
the counter and bought tickets. Trotter had repeated his statement that he was
demanding his rights. At this time a plain-clothed officer stepped up to
Trotter and hit him full in the face. A fight immediately broke out between
Trotter’s supporters and the large group of Boston police who were on the scene.
Trotter was kicked and punched and then put into hand cuffs by two police and they
dragged him 15 blocks to the police station. Minister Puller had attempted to call
for peace but was also punched and then a large officer put him in a choke hold
and still in the hold was dragged the 15 blocks.
Eleven other Blacks men were
arrested in the melee. It wasn’t a riot but a fight between Blacks and police where
the Blacks were badly outnumbered and beaten. All of them were released the
next day without immediate charges but warned not to challenge the theater
again. A rally for Trotter and Puller was held at Faneuil Hall and a crowd of
1,500, both Black and White had come. Trotter called the film a great incentive
to racial violence and that if there were an actual lynching that Mayor Curly
would be responsible.
Two days later, using the
momentum of a city that considered itself progressive compared to the Jim Crow
South Trotter led a march on the state house where he and a recovering Puller
met with Governor Walsh, the chief of the state police, and others to discuss
the film and all the complaints that had come at Griffith in Boston and other
cities. Including why Chicago, Pittsburgh and Denver had refused to allow the
movie to be shown.
This meeting led to the creation
of a censorship board to review the film. Two weeks later a mass meeting was
held at Minister Puller’s church, the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury. At
this meeting Trotter introduced a resolution condemning Boston police action at
the Tremont Theater. However, the National Independent Political League Lawyer
Joshua Crawford said, "We are not going to stop. The film has got to go or
they will have to put us in jail."
While it appeared, there was a
strong movement and a possibility of getting the film censored in Boston that didn’t
happen. Trotter appeared in municipal court where the judge did find the
Tremont Theater had used unfair discrimination in selling tickets, a legal
victory. The same judge also fined Trotter $20 (Approximately $630 in 2025) for
disturbing the peace, stating that someone with Mr. Trotters influence was such
that his conduct was inappropriate and that if people were wronged, he should
have tried for redress in the courts or legislature. The censorship board also decided
that the Tremont Theater could continue to show the film. So as Trotter always
believed the system was unfair to Blacks.
Even though the protests continued
it made no impact on the box office, for the time The Birth of A Nation was the
biggest ticket sales event of the silent era. There was no official box office
that early in film history, totals have been adjusted for inflation for
anywhere from $5 million to $1.8 billion both ridiculous conclusions. Factually
what id known is that it had a cultural impact well beyond what any film critic
or even film historian believes it deserved.
Trotter continued to be seen as a
radical even within Black activist circles. His anti-establishment positions
and anti-WWI activities caused him to lose support and in the Red Summer of
1919 when White on Black violence had reached an extreme with race riots across
the country but Trotter wrote of rebellion and how Whites would soon regret how
“Uncle Sam” had trained Black soldiers. While Trotter came from rare Black
wealth he had lost most of it in his activities and in publishing The Guardian.
He fell into a form of elegant penury still maintaining his social refinement
while borrowing on the means of others. His wife and partner in protesting died
in the great influenza of 1918.
Through these years of decline he
still published The Guardian and used it as a voice of protest. He reported on lynchings,
anti-Black laws, censorship of Blacks and anything that he felt targeted Blacks
and showed unequal treatment. He eventually was found dead April 7th, 1934. He
was 62 years old and was found after some type of fall from the roof of his
home. While it is speculated that he did commit suicide because it was know he
had been extremely depressed however there was no definite evidence supporting
anything specific.
Trotter is considered among the
100 greatest African Americans in U.S. history. There are several schools named
after him and his home is a landmark and museum.
Sources:
https://iu.pressbooks.pub/thebirthofanation/chapter/birth-of-a-nations-long-century/
https://www.salon.com/2014/11/30/race_riot_in_the_south_end_the_movie_that_reignited_the_civil_war/
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