The film's release provoked organized resistance from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which attempted to block screenings and persuaded officials in some cities to impose bans or restrictions. In several major Northern cities, audiences and protesters were caught up in riots connected to the film's racial content and the violent political mythology it promoted. The movie nevertheless circulated widely and broke the box-office records of its time. Its influence extended beyond entertainment: historians commonly identify it as one factor in the Ku Klux Klan's revival in the months and years that followed, although the revival also depended on broader political and social conditions. Griffith responded to the criticism with Intolerance (1916), an enormous four-part historical spectacle portraying persecution in Babylon, the time of Christ, Renaissance France, and modern America. He intended the film as a defense of his artistic principles and a rebuke to what he considered censorious intolerance, but the answer became a financial disaster. Griffith poured a lavish budget into production and promotion, largely financed the project himself, and failed to recover the cost, contributing to financial difficulties that followed him for the rest of his life.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1910s
The NAACP Campaign, Urban Riots, and Griffith's Cinematic Counterattack
The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance / 1910s
The film's release provoked organized resistance from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which attempted to block screenings and persuaded officials in some cities to impose bans or restrictions. In several major Northern cities, audiences and protesters were caught up in riots connected to the film's racial content and the violent political mythology it promoted. The movie nevertheless circulated widely and broke the box-office records of its time. Its influence extended beyond entertainment: historians commonly identify it as one factor in the Ku Klux Klan's revival in the months and years that followed, although the revival also depended on broader political and social conditions. Griffith responded to the criticism with Intolerance (1916), an enormous four-part historical spectacle portraying persecution in Babylon, the time of Christ, Renaissance France, and modern America. He intended the film as a defense of his artistic principles and a rebuke to what he considered censorious intolerance, but the answer became a financial disaster. Griffith poured a lavish budget into production and promotion, largely financed the project himself, and failed to recover the cost, contributing to financial difficulties that followed him for the rest of his life.
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