Birth of a Movement

In 1915, African American newspaper editor and civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter waged a battle against D.W. Griffith’s notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly blockbuster The Birth of a Nation, which unleashed a fight still raging today about race relations and representation, and the power and influence of Hollywood. Birth of a Movement features commentary from Spike Lee, Reginald Hudlin, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and DJ Spooky (who created a new score and remix of the Griffith film), and numerous clips from the technically groundbreaking but racially astounding epic.