Book Report on D.W. Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation" The teacher asked us to respond to what we read and how we feel about it.

A Southern View of the Civil War and Reconstruction

The Civil War, still the most line-drawing event in the history of the American Nation, forever separated the United States into the North and South philosophically. Even today, many southern states fly the confederate flag and many southern citizens still harbor animosity towards the North. This war, which took more American lives than Vietnam and World Wars I and II combined, was the trigger that divided our country into the North and the South. As can be seen in D.W.Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation, slavery was the pressure on that trigger. While the North felt it was morally correct to free the slaves, the South felt that the slaves were their property and no one had the right to tell them what they could do with them. Although it may be obvious to us today that slavery is not morally correct, the Southern Nation as depicted in the silent film Birth of a Nation by D.W.

Quotation from Woodrow Wilson's History of the Ame...

From The Birth of a Nation-Hooded Klansmen catch G...

Cameron

Griffith and based on the book "The Clansman" written by Thomas Dixon, had a differing viewpoint. This film relates the story of the Civil War and the Reconstruction from the Southern viewpoint. Although the facts may not have been wholly truthful, the story mirrors the south's recollection of these events.

My reading of this book as well as my viewing of the original 1915 silent film gave me insight into a southern viewpoint that I had not formerly been privy to. Living in the North all of my life, I had not been familiar with the southern viewpoint on the Civil War and therefore found it difficult to see the war through their eyes; however, I took the viewpoint for what it was and nothing more in the end. This very controversial book...