Ive heard that birth of a nation was well received at first because of a wide racist audience. What were the reactions of African American, protestant white American or other popular reviewers of film?
It got a rave review in the New York Herald Tribune. President Woodrow Wilson and Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White both saw pre-release screenings and liked it. It played to sold out audiences for weeks at the Liberty Theater on Broadway in New York.
Many others, on the other hand, were critical of the film upon its release. There were articles and letters to the editor in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and other newspapers condemning the film's depiction of race relations. The NAACP fought to keep it out of theaters. In New York City, after the film had been showing for a few weeks, Mayor John P. Mitchel censored the most objectionable scenes whenever the film was shown within the city limits, though the Broadway theater that was currently screening the film had cut those scenes out already.
The NAACP's efforts to keep it out of theaters entirely almost succeeded. In the 1910s, before there was the MPAA or the Hays Office, there was the National Board of Censorship. They screened films for approval or disapproval, and if approved, there would be a seal of approval at the beginning of the film.
The Censorship Board approved the film, but the President of the board, Frederick C. Howe, whose name was part of the seal of approval, did not approve of the film, and he wanted his name off it. A "large minority" of the Board agreed with him, and he gave a statement to the press, which ran on page 3 of the March 24, 1915, issue of The Chicago Tribune:
"My objection [to Birth of a Nation] was personal. It was because the story is bound to arouse race hatred, which I think unjustified, and have a bad effect. It is likely to lead to race troubles. I object to the scene of a brutal negro chasing a white girl. That is not a sufficiently frequent occurrence to justify the author's claim that it is the greatest film ever produced.
"If the picture goes into the south, I should think it would bring about race riots. Men might be killed as a result of it.
"It would have a bad effect on white people as well as upon black people. It is going to postpone the approach to a solution of the racial problem much longer.
"I don't exactly approve of a censorship in a strict sense of the word. My theory of the board is an organization to fight where necessary to uphold public opinion."