In the early months of 1965, as race riots and civil rights marches were capturing the nation's attention, the film world was preparing to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of D. W. Griffith's epic masterpiece, The Birth of a Nation. Highly publicized screenings of the film were scheduled for Los Angeles and New York's Museum of Modern Art, as well as for several locations abroad.Footnote ¹ At the very same time, the NAACP was planning its own response. As it had done when Birth first appeared and subsequently with each new release, America's premier civil rights organization was once again leading the protest against the film's racist message.

That February, in highly emotional terms, Roy Wilkins, the president of the NAACP, decried the lasting damage Birth had done to the black community. “Since the film appeared fifty years ago,” he declared,

And an article which appeared at the same time in the NAACP's publication, The Crisis, recounted in some detail and with obvious pride how the civil rights organization, then only six years old, had launched its campaign against Griffith's film.Footnote ³ Despite its small membership and very limited resources, the leaders of the association and its chapters had worked tirelessly, meeting with governors, mayors, and city council members, and organizing rallies throughout much of the country. In the course of this struggle, the NAACP had achieved some impressive initial successes. The film was banned outright in two states – Ohio and Kansas – and in numerous small and large cities. However, the article also regretfully acknowledged that almost all of the victories had been short-lived. By the second half of 1916, people could attend showings of Birth almost everywhere. Nonetheless, the association had fought the good fight. The article concludes by urging its readers to take up the struggle once again and protest public showings of the film.

The above statements reveal a great deal about the association's long and contentious history with Birth. Certainly one might argue that Wilkins had greatly exaggerated the lasting harm this film had caused the black community. Racism was deeply entrenched in America well before Griffith, and there seems to be no evidence that his film worsened the situation. Yet what Wilkins's assertion does reveal is just how enduring and hurtful The Birth of a Nation was for black Americans, and especially for the NAACP.

As remarkable and compelling as Griffith's film was in 1915, by 1965 this silent film, with its stylized acting and simplistic view of the world, hardly posed a threat to race relations. Yet despite the passage of time, the association simply could not disengage from its struggle with the film. It was too emotional an issue. Indeed, the protests would continue well beyond 1965. Between 1915 and 1973, the NAACP challenged showings no less than 120 times.Footnote ⁴

Interestingly, however, this latest call to protest did not urge supporters to appeal to local political leaders, or to the courts, or to try to convince other civic groups to join them. That is, there is no attempt to prevent the film's showing or force the deletion of its most offensive scenes. Instead, the NAACP was expressing its opposition to Birth through public demonstrations, hoping to dissuade people from seeing the film and perhaps causing discomfort for theater management.Footnote ⁵

Certainly this was a far cry from 1915, when the association used every possible means to block the film. Yet despite these rather extreme measures, the campaign not only was a failure, but was counterproductive. The highly publicized protests not only provided the film with free publicity, but tarred the NAACP with the brush of censorship while allowing Griffith to emerge as the champion of free speech. Moreover, the campaign drained much of the association's energies and very limited finances from the struggle against the more tangible forms of racism affecting black people throughout America. While The Birth of a Nation certainly demeaned blacks and no doubt reinforced negative attitudes, such other matters as lynchings and discrimination in housing, employment, transportation, and education were clearly more serious. According to Thomas Cripps, in the final analysis, “The costs to blacks – tactical, financial, and psychic – were enormous.”Footnote ⁶

Others, however, have argued that despite its failure to censor Birth, the campaign was indeed a success. The NAACP emerged from this struggle stronger and more effective than it might have been had it simply ignored Griffith's epic masterpiece and maintained its focus on the more pressing and important issues. According to Jon Lewis, the great irony of the campaign is that it aided both the association and Birth. It provided the film with free additional publicity while mobilizing “thousands of Black and White men and women in large cities across the country (outside the Deep South) who had been unaware of the association or indifferent to it.”Footnote ⁷ Likewise, Richard Schickel regards the publicity generated by the campaign as the significant achievement of the struggle. He argues that it is a mistake to judge the campaign as Cripps does, primarily in terms of victories and defeats. Rather, Birth provided the association with the opportunity “to get its name in the papers on a subject that commanded mass attention.”Footnote ⁸ In the process, it drew to its side such prominent figures as Charles Eliot, the president emeritus of Harvard; Albert Bushnell Hart, the historian; and George Foster Peabody, the wealthy philanthropist. And more recently, Melvyn Stokes has argued that publicity from the association's struggle against Birth helped produce a dramatic increase in its membership. Over the course of 1915, he points out that membership nearly doubled to almost ten thousand.Footnote ⁹

Although the campaign clearly caused many more people to learn about the NAACP, publicity is a rather amorphous matter and one can never be certain if it is primarily favorable or not. While the membership increases Stokes points to might serve as a tangible measure of popularity, even this is subject to interpretation. If one looks at membership increases over a four-year period, those for 1915 do not seem as impressive as they first appeared. In the years just prior to the appearance of Birth, membership in the NAACP was already increasing dramatically. According to the association's records, membership in the course of 1913 almost tripled, from 1,100 members to 3,000.Footnote ¹⁰ Although the increases for 1914 did not approach the spectacular figures of the previous year, membership nonetheless rose by a very striking 70 percent to 5,075.Footnote ¹¹ In the following year, highlighted by the campaign against Birth, membership grew by 87 percent to 9,416.Footnote ¹² Although this is a certainly a remarkable increase, it is only somewhat higher than that of 1914, and not nearly as much as one might have expected, given the publicity surrounding the campaign. Even more surprising was the revelation in the secretary's report of the following March that four thousand members, or slightly more than 40 percent of the entire membership, were delinquent in their dues.Footnote ¹³ In response, the board of directors agreed to carry those members on the rolls for one year, after which they would be dropped.Footnote ¹⁴ The effect of this policy appeared in the annual report for 1916. For the year, 2,253 new members joined the association, but 2,739 of the delinquent were dropped.Footnote ¹⁵ The net effect of this was that the association ended the year with 8,785 members, 486 fewer than when the year began.

What these figures reveal is that well before the struggle to ban Griffith's film, the association's membership had been growing rapidly. While the campaign of 1915 no doubt caused some to join the NAACP, it did not result in an unusual surge in membership rolls. Growth for that year was only slightly higher than the previous year. Moreover, in 1916, whether it was from disillusionment with the campaign or for a myriad of other reasons, peoples' interest in joining or even remaining in the association declined significantly. Indeed, it would not be until 1918, driven by the more substantive issues of its antilynching campaign, that the association's rolls soared. That year began with a membership of 9,282 and concluded with an almost fivefold increase, to 43,994.Footnote ¹⁶

Thus, if there were real benefits from its campaign, these are not as obvious as Lewis, Schickel, and Stokes have maintained. Whatever favorable national attention the association might have received clearly did not carry over to its membership rolls. It seems, therefore, that the question about the beneficial results of the campaign still remains.

What is perhaps not in question is the impact of the arrival of Birth on the NAACP. Griffith's film did not merely constitute one more serious issue for the association to address. While one might argue that lynching and segregation in housing and employment were of much greater importance, Birth shook the NAACP to its core, forcing it to reevaluate its tactics and its principles.

In the months before the opening of Birth, the association seemed clearly in the ascendant. By this time, it was rapidly outpacing its chief rival, Booker T. Washington's “Tuskeegee Machine” and its philosophy of gradualism and appeasement in black civil rights. As early as January of that year, Ralph Waldo Tyler, a close associate of Washington's, described with alarm the situation in the nation's capitol, where the

Aside from its growing prominence, the association had also developed a clear strategy for dealing with problems by tempering its commitment to complete racial equality with a strong practical sense of what was possible within present realities. In the pages of The Crisis, it regularly explained this balanced approach to its members so that they would remain dedicated to the struggle, yet not develop unrealistic expectations. In January, the Legal Bureau cautioned that

And in the April issue, it explained that because of the difficulty of winning civil rights cases in New York,

Thus, despite the enormity and diversity of the problems it faced, the association was determined not to become overwhelmed and dissipate its energies. Rather, it would control the struggle by being the one to decide when to make a stand and over which issues. It was prepared to allow many injustices to go unanswered in order to focus on the one or two that offered the greatest possibility for success. Moreover, it would proceed at a pace it regarded as appropriate to the situation.

When it came to tactics, pragmatism again prevailed. While it most often sought redress through the courts, the association would employ whatever strategy it deemed most effective. This might take the form of meeting with those in positions of power, or mass public protests, or the dissemination of literature to educate people about matters of concern.Footnote ²⁰ For example, in April, it convinced the mayor of Boston to order an end to all discrimination against blacks in the city's gyms, baths, and so on.Footnote ²¹ In that same month, it became involved in the case of a black infantryman charged with burglary. After Oswald Villard, one of the founders of the association and the editor of the New York Evening Post, met with the Judge Advocate General, the soldier was acquitted.Footnote ²² In July, in response to Louisville, Kentucky's plan to segregate the city by law, it orchestrated a public protest involving eight hundred blacks.Footnote ²³ And in November, after challenging Cornell University's policy of racial segregation in dormitories, it received assurances from the school's president that “justice will be done.”Footnote ²⁴

While there was obviously a myriad of problems which blacks faced on a daily basis, some more serious than others, it was upon legal segregation that the association chose to focus. With his election in 1912, the Virginian Woodrow Wilson introduced racial segregation into federal employment. The association's efforts to dissuade the President from this policy by appealing to reason and the possible loss of black support were to no effect. Indeed, in November, Wilson explained to a delegation of blacks that “segregation was caused by friction between colored and white clerks and not done to injure or humiliate the colored clerks. Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.”Footnote ²⁵

Yet, if it made no headway with the President, the association's struggle against legal housing segregation was more promising. By the middle of 1914, segregation ordinances had passed in Baltimore, Richmond, Norfolk, Roanoke, and Atlanta. Several other southern and border cities, including New Orleans, Saint Louis, and Louisville were planning to do the same. Although it had success in challenging these in state courts, the various communities would respond with new versions which the courts might find more acceptable. When Louisville passed its ordinance in May, the association decided to make this one the focus of its challenge. Since it had no chapter in that city, it proceeded to organize one to provide vigorous local opposition to the ordinance.Footnote ²⁶ Ultimately however, as The Crisis pointed out, it would be the courts, not protests or rallies, that would decide “if the Negro is to be segregated in the United States.”Footnote ²⁷

Thus, by the end of 1914, as The Birth of a Nation was about to appear, the NAACP had shown itself to be a remarkably resilient, pragmatic, and determined organization. Despite its numerous setbacks, its meager finances, and the fact that it had very limited influence in those areas of the country where the most egregious racial incidents occurred, it persevered. It was under no illusions about the prevailing political and social realities and chose its tactics accordingly. In the case of lynchings, for the time being it had to content itself primarily with publicizing and recording each incident. With regard to segregation in federal employment, since the President had rejected its appeals, the association turned to the courts in challenging his order requiring photographs from all applicants for civil service positions.Footnote ²⁸ And with housing segregation, it made a carefully calculated decision that from among all of the cities with such ordinances, it would make Louisville its test case for the US Supreme Court to decide.

With the arrival of The Birth of a Nation, the NAACP faced a challenge which it was ill-prepared to address. Its basic strategy, which had served it so well in confronting other issues, was simply inadequate for dealing with this one. First, it effectively lost the freedom of deciding whether it would or would not respond. Griffith's mastery of the new art, with its wealth of visual detail, its cast of thousands, and its remarkable shooting and editing, resulted in a uniquely powerful presentation. Described by the association's west coast secretary as “a masterpiece and from an artistic point of view, the finest thing of its kind I have ever witnessed,”Footnote ²⁹ there was every reason to fear that the film would compel its viewers to embrace conservative southern racist attitudes. For better or worse, the association felt it had no choice but to respond.

Second, it was also denied the luxury of determining the timing of its response. In the case of the housing segregation ordinances, the association had carefully evaluated those in several cities and, after some discussion, decided that Louisville was the “right one.” D. W. Griffith, however, had made delay impossible. To engage in prolonged discussions about how, when, and where to respond would, in the interim, allow Griffith to cast his spell over thousands. Clearly, this was unacceptable. Prepared or not, the association had to act promptly.

Third, the challenge from Birth was such that the NAACP found itself forced to turn away from its preferred methods in favor of others. Although the judicial system had been and would continue to be the association's most reliable and effective means of obtaining recourse, it was not an option in this situation. The leadership believed that the courts would not be sympathetic to its claims that the film heightened racial tensions and therefore constituted a threat to the social order. Unlike lynching or housing segregation, Griffith's film did not violate any laws or constitutional principles. Indeed, one of the great ironies of this struggle is that it would be Griffith who turned to the courts for protection against the association.Footnote ³⁰

Being deprived of the judiciary, the NAACP would employ a variety of tactics against the film, most of which were in keeping with its basic principles. It arranged marches, rallies, and mass gatherings to publicize its concerns about Birth. The largest of these occurred in Boston when, in April, thousands gathered in the Boston Common and at Fanueil Hall to hear speeches and to voice their opposition to the film. And in September, a crowd of five hundred protesters gathered in front of Philadelphia's Ford Theater.

The association also produced several pamphlets which pointed out the numerous historical inaccuracies in Birth and discussed the black experience in America.Footnote ³¹ These were sent to every chapter, which in turn distributed thousands of copies throughout the country. And in May, it entered into discussions with Universal Films to produce a rival to Birth.Footnote ³² In October, no doubt anxious to buoy its readers' spirits, The Crisis optimistically announced, “The Association takes great pleasure in telling its many members and friends that a new scenario … thoroughly sympathetic to the Negro … will be brought out by the Universal Film Company.”Footnote ³³ Ultimately, this film, entitled Lincoln's Dream, never materialized because the association failed to raise $10,000, which was its share of the costs. In November, The Crisis revealed plans for yet another film “to be an answer to Thomas Dixon's ‘Birth of a Nation’.”Footnote ³⁴ Negotiations had begun with the Thomas Ince Company to produce a film dealing with the story of blacks in America. Like Lincoln's Dream, it never appeared.

Fourth, not only were the NAACP denied the option of a judicial remedy, but The Birth of a Nation placed the it in the unenviable position of violating its deeply held belief in free speech and now becoming an advocate of censorship. It goes without saying that racist messages in popular American culture were nothing new. In fact, Griffith based his film on two very popular works by the avowed racist Thomas Dixon. Early in 1905, Dixon's novel The Clansman appeared. Encouraged by its popularity, Dixon produced a stage version which appeared in September of that same year.Footnote ³⁵

When compared to Dixon, Griffith was without question infinitely more talented. Indeed, one modern critic has referred to Dixon as “a popular but sub-literary novelist.”Footnote ³⁶ Yet, regarding the problem Birth posed for the NAACP, it was not so much a matter of Griffith's ability as it was the medium in which he worked. Had he produced a truly fine novel or play with a racist message, one could easily imagine the association responding with a novel or play of its own. The fact that it was a film which Griffith produced, and a remarkable one at that, is what forced the association to turn to censorship. To respond in kind and produce a film of its own was simply out of the question. The association's meager finances were barely adequate to meet normal activities.

Yet the nature of film made a vigorous response imperative. In contrast to those who read books or attend plays, filmgoers constitute an infinitely larger and more diverse audience, coming from virtually all ages, educational levels, and cultural backgrounds. Moreover, by telling its story with carefully edited images, accompanied by music, film had an unmatched power to manipulate its viewers and deprive them of the opportunity to use their imaginations or make independent judgments. While Dixon's novel and play contain emotionally charged rape scenes, these pale when compared to the way Griffith presents Flora's flight from Gus. He devoted no less that four minutes of screen time to this episode. Using crosscutting, highly charged music, and close-ups of the frantic young girl and the lustful black soldier, Griffith managed to rouse the passions of his viewers in a way Dixon never could, even had he been more gifted.

Confronted with this situation and despite their grave misgivings, the leaders of the NAACP committed the organization to censoring Birth. While some members opposed censorship for any reason, the association felt that it had no choice in the matter. In its year-end report for 1915, and with obvious discomfort, it explained the regrettable decision to use censorship against Birth.

Many years later, in his memoir, W. E. B. Du Bois, the editor of The Crisis and one of the dominant personalities in the association, eloquently captured the essence of the predicament:

Interestingly, one of the great ironies in the association's struggle against Birth is that despite its misgivings about censorship, its timing in this matter could not have been better. By the time of the arrival of Birth, concerns about the harmful effects of film on American morals had resulted in a proliferation of censorship boards. Chicago established the first of these in 1907. New York quickly followed suit, as did a whole host of other cities. In 1911 Pennsylvania took the next step by creating a state censorship board.

Four years later, this movement to control the content of films reached a culmination of sorts. In February 1915, the very same month when the NAACP began its struggle with Birth, the United States Supreme Court issued the momentous Mutual decision. By this ruling, the court declared the motion picture industry to be a form of commerce, not art. It was therefore not entitled to First Amendment protections against censorship.Footnote ³⁹ While the NAACP might have serious reservations about censoring film, the Supreme Court and much of America did not.

During 1915 and 1916, the issues of The Crisis are filled with the details of the struggle to censor Birth. The effort began in February, just prior to the film's Los Angeles premiere, when the association's local branch and other groups appealed to the city's censorship board to block the film. When this failed, they turned to the mayor and chief of police. And when these officials explained that they lacked the authority to stop the film, the protestors petitioned the city council to ask the censorship board to reconsider its approval of the film, and to instruct the chief of police to prevent its performance. Although the council complied with this request, Griffith obtained an injunction against any interference with his film's showing. On 8 February, The Birth of a Nation played to its first audience.Footnote ⁴⁰

In large measure, the events in Los Angeles would serve as the pattern for how this struggle would play out across the country. Whether it was in small or large communities, the association would turn to local or state officials to block the film. In the majority of cases, mayors, city councils, and occasionally governors proved sympathetic and granted those requests. Griffith or his representatives would then turn to the courts and obtain an injunction that permitted audiences virtually everywhere to watch the film. Thus, while the NAACP might enjoy considerable success in winning over public officials, in the end Griffith usually prevailed.

After the defeat in Los Angeles, Joel Springarn, the chairman of the association's Board of Directors, hoped to short-circuit the entire struggle by appealing to the film industry's National Board of Review to withdraw its original approval of Birth. In the end, on 12 March, a divided board ordered the removal of certain scenes, but refused to ban the film. Its responsibility, it declared, was with matters of moral content, not historical accuracy.Footnote ⁴¹

From this point on, the struggle against Birth would play out on the local level. By early April, fully aware that the courts would not be sympathetic to its censorship efforts, the national office was directing all chapters to follow a strategy of gaining the support of local organizations and public officials. It urged them to

And by mid-June, the association had refined that strategy somewhat, informing its chapters that the only effective way of stopping the film was “by executive order of the Mayor, whom you may be able to interest by united appeals from colored and white civic and welfare organizations, secret societies, women's clubs, etc.”Footnote ⁴³

In terms of popular agitation and publicity, the high point of the campaign occurred in New York and Boston, where opponents of Birth arranged marches and other large-scale public demonstrations in the hopes of winning over city officials. In both cities, the mayors met with leaders of the protests to hear their concerns. On 20 March, New York mayor John Mitchell assured both the representatives from the NAACP and Washington's supporters that he would insist on the removal of the most offensive materials in Birth. In the end, however, Griffith made only minimal deletions, leaving the controversial scenes essentially intact.

One week later, and reminiscent of the events in New York, Boston's mayor Michael Curley expressed support for the opponents of Birth and agreed that certain scenes were clearly inflammatory. While he acknowledged that he lacked the legal authority to ban or even require deletions in the film, he nonetheless managed to convince the film's producers to make the desired changes.

However, what the NAACP wanted was not deletions made at the will of the filmmaker, but a legally enforceable ban of the film's showing. The opportunity to achieve this came on 20 April, when Representative Lewis Sullivan introduced a bill to forbid any public performances that could incite racial or religious prejudice. In the resulting struggle, the association, for the first time, became deeply involved in Massachusetts politics, organizing mass rallies of the city's black residents and meeting individually with legislators of both parties. In the end, and in large part due to the association's massive efforts, the bill passed, and on 21 May, Governor David Walsh signed it into law.

With this victory, the association had clearly demonstrated its political power. Yet, while it had played a key role in providing city officials with the legal means to ban Griffith's film, in the end there was profound disappointment. In July, The Crisis informed its readers that “Boston was victorious in its efforts in the Legislature which finally passed the bill creating a Board of Censorship consisting of the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and the Chief Magistrate.”Footnote ⁴⁴ The announcement, however, regretfully concluded, “The Board decided that the license of the theater should not be revoked or suspended, but gave no reason.”Footnote ⁴⁵

For the remainder of 1915 and into the first half of 1916, The Crisis kept its readers well informed of the campaign's highs and lows. The June issue noted that, despite protests, Birth was appearing in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and was about to arrive in Chicago. In July, the news was more optimistic, as The Crisis announced the creation of ten new branches in the Mid-west,Footnote ⁴⁶ and that Chicago's mayor, “Big Bill” Thompson, had denied permission for Birth's showing.Footnote ⁴⁷ This victory, however, was short-lived. Having received an appeal from Griffith's representatives, Judge William Fenimore Cooper promptly enjoined the mayor from interfering with the showing of Birth. He justified his decision by explaining,

Understandably, it is the association's efforts in such large cities as Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia that historians have highlighted. Yet what chapters in small and medium-sized cities managed to achieve is of particular importance. Communities which had previously played little or no role in the association's activities became energized by this struggle. In the course of their efforts, they petitioned a wide variety of authorities to ban the film or at least have its most inflammatory scenes removed. Although the mayors of Oakland, Milwakee, and Louisville rejected requests to ban the film and those of Baxter-Springs, Kansas and Minneapolis reversed themselves after first agreeing to censor Birth, overall the list of the successes local chapters had with state and local officials is quite impressive. Among these were the mayors of Springfield, Massachusetts; Gary, Indiana; Charleston, West Virginia; Newark and Atlantic City, New Jersey; and a host of councils and censorship boards in Memphis, Tennessee; Denver, Colorado; Providence, Rhode Island; and Sacramento and San Francisco, California.Footnote ⁴⁹ Indeed, as late as mid-1916, chapters in rather unfamiliar and far-flung cities tenaciously persevered against the film. An article in the June issue of The Crisis, “Still Fighting the Film,” provided brief details of the campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa; Gary, Indiana; Las Cruces, New Mexico; Douglas, Arizona; and Tacoma, Washington.Footnote ⁵⁰

Although skirmishes with Birth would continue, it had become clear by this point, if not well before, that the censorship strategy was ineffective. In early September, the association's secretary, May Childs Nerney, recommended that the Trenton Branch drop its efforts to block the film, explaining that “from the experience of our branches in other cities, we fear you will not be able to stop this. In those cities where the mayor has refused to license it, the producer has secured injunctions against the mayor and exhibited the picture.”Footnote ⁵¹ Instead, she urged the more modest but realistic goal of having “the most objectionable parts eliminated. I am therefore enclosing a list of the cuts which were made in New York.”Footnote ⁵²

By December, Du Bois had also tacitly acknowledged the campaign's failure, by printing an editorial that had appeared in The Independent, a “white paper” from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. After criticizing Griffith for “his cruel slander of a weak and helpless race,” the author urged blacks to turn away from censorship and instead “use their many talents and leadership in putting before the world in picture, drama, poetry, music, and pageant their claims to the white man's tolerance and respect.”Footnote ⁵³

And while details of the struggle regularly appeared in the minutes of meetings of the Board of Directors throughout 1915 and received considerable attention in Chairman Springarn's end-of-year report, by 1916 all such references had disappeared, even though several western chapters would continue their protests well into the year. By the end of 1915, the association's leadership, never really comfortable with censorship, had clearly moved on to more pressing issues.

And May Nerney's end-of-year report on the campaign reveals, with obvious disappointment, the extent of the association's effort. In the fight against The Birth of a Nation, she noted,

That the association had committed so much of it energy and finances to this ultimately failed campaign is a testament not only to D. W. Griffith's artistry, but to the power of film. The ability of this new art form to present racist ideas in such a compelling way to huge and diverse audiences forced the association to conclude that it had no choice but to turn to censorship or allow Griffith's message to prevail.

While it is obviously impossible to know if Birth had any significant effect on American racial attitudes, it seems clear that the association's greatest fears were not realized. Although there was a slight increase in lynchings in 1915, that figure declined the following year.Footnote ⁵⁵ While the film might well have reinforced the established racial views of its audiences, there seems to be little evidence of an increase in overt racism.Footnote ⁵⁶

What is perhaps most interesting and important about the campaign against Birth is that while it did not achieve its goals, it transformed the NAACP in ways no one could have anticipated. Certainly, in the end, Griffith's strategy prevailed over that of the association. The injunctions he obtained allowed Birth to play virtually everywhere. However, until this film's appearance, all of the issues the association had confronted tended to be local or regional. Housing segregation involved only specific cities in southern and border states. Lynching also was overwhelmingly a southern phenomenon. The Birth of a Nation, however, was a national event. It appeared in cities and towns of all sizes above and below the Mason-Dixon Line. As the film moved from major population centers to smaller ones, so too did the protests. Birth generated not only interest but also opposition throughout the nation.

Now, clearly, at the head of this first national movement in support of America's blacks was the NAACP. Not only did the association's leaders see themselves in this role, so too did all those across the country who wanted to keep the film out of their communities. Towards the end of 1915, after acknowledging Griffith's success in having his film shown virtually everywhere with few, if any, restrictions, Secretary Nerney noted that the “NAACP office is flooded with applications for help from all over the United States and even from Canada.”Footnote ⁵⁷ In effect, the campaign against Birth had elevated the association to a position of national stature and indeed preeminence in the struggle for civil rights in America.

Moreover, on the local level, the censorship campaign benefited the association's chapters in very specific ways. One can perhaps take issue with the assertions of Lewis, Schickel, and Stokes about publicity, and certainly with any notion that the campaign was a boon to membership. Yet what the censorship effort did achieve was to provide local chapters with the opportunity to hone their political skills. Realizing that the courts would not be sympathetic to its efforts, the association's leadership urged its members to focus upon winning over public officials. As a result, in cities throughout much of America, NAACP members achieved considerable success in convincing mayors, city councils, censorship boards, state legislators, and governors that Birth posed a danger to the social order and to issue decrees or legislation to prevent or alter its showing. Through these meetings, negotiations, and resulting relationships with prominent figures, local chapters acquired invaluable practical experience about how to function in local politics.Footnote ⁵⁸ One lasting indication of this is the passage of the Sullivan Bill in Boston. Although the newly created censorship board ultimately refused to ban the film, its creation is a clear indication of the association's ability to function effectively in local politics.

In the end, it seems that one could justly criticize the campaign against The Birth of a Nation as not only a failure but also a mistake. Despite its reservations, the association became an outspoken advocate for censorship, and opened itself up to the charge of hypocrisy. Moreover, the energy it invested against the film might have been more profitably directed against more tangible forms of racism. Yet ironically it was also this flawed struggle which made the NAACP a truly national and dynamic organization.

In the following decades, the association's traditional strategy of fighting institutional racism with litigation, legislation, and local activism would result in numerous significant achievements. Ironically, 1965 would stand out as a high-water mark for the NAACP. While this year marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Birth of a Nation, it also witnessed the passage of the Voting Rights Act, deemed the most effective piece of legislation ever passed by Congress. Even before President Johnson signed the bill into law on 6 August, volunteers in the association's Summer Project were busily registering new voters in the South. By summer's end, they had increased voter rolls in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama by fifty thousand. Moreover, in this same year, Thurgood Marshall, who had been the chief counsel for the NAACP since 1940 and who had successfully argued the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka before the Supreme Court in 1954, was appointed Solicitor General of the United States. In this capacity, the man known as “Mr. Civil Rights” now occupied the highest office for a practicing lawyer.

While the various festivities surrounding D. W. Griffith's masterpiece certainly revived long-standing resentments for the NAACP, 1965 was a very good year indeed.