Birth of a Nation is really instrumental in the revival of the KKK and that was its stated purpose. Based on the book 'The Clansmen' by Thomas Dixon. Dixons father was a Confederate veteran and was also in the Klan as one of the first members. He wrote this story to show why exactly the Klan existed and why they were held up as heros in the south.
Famously this was the first movie ever shown in the white house and President Woodrow Wilson praised it. Most people today will think this is just dumb mean spirited racism, but its more complicated. President Wilson, Thomas Dixon, and even director D.W. Griffith were all southerners, all men in the generation right after the civil war. It wasnt some distant historical setting for them to LARP as, they actually grew up in a war torn and conquered south, this is why this film resonated with them.
Another part of history that isnt really discussed is the fact that southern men after the war were stripped of all of their rights to vote. So they were replaced in local government by Northern Republicans or Blacks, which obviously resulted in resentment and lead to a course were all that was left was violent revolution. People who have never seen the movie think its about hating blacks, but not really. Blacks arent the villain of the movie, and neither is Abe Lincoln (who is depicted as a noble but flawed antagonist on account of Lincoln being from the south originally) the real villain of the movie is the hardcore radical abolitionist Austin Stoneman (who is based on the real life Thaddeus Stevens) If you saw the Lincoln movie with Daniel Day Lewis, Stevens was the guy played by Tommy Lee Jones. Not trying to say the movie portrays blacks in a favorable light, but it isnt the naked simple black and white hatred as it is commonly depicted.
People often wonder why a poor southerner would fight in a war for some rich plantation owners slaves, well that was kind of it. The fear that once the slaves were freed, theyd wage a revenge race war, and the northerners would just sit by and let it happen. Not at all a crazy theory considering what happened in Haiti only 60 years before (within living memory) and that did kind of happen after the war.
Dixon stated that his point was to portray the KKK as he and other southerners saw them to the rest of America, which was pretty successful considering it led to the reformation of the KKK. But Dixon didnt like the 2nd Klan because, and Im not joking, he felt they were too hateful. Whereas the original one loved the southern people, he felt the new one was just naked hatred of blacks and of jews, which he never had a problem with and was quick to name southern jews who were in the confederacy.
Also, he made up the cross burning thing for the movie. They never did that originally. Apparently it was some ancient Scottish highlander thing to burn a big cross (more like an x than a christian cross) as a rallying cry for battle, and he was super into his Scottish heritage and was quick to name all the Scottish aspects about the clan.
