A Geek History of Time - Episode 376 - Birth of a Nation as a Horror Film with Dr. Donald Guillory Part II

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

When I think nuclear annihilation, I think... La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la I'm gonna drink a metric fuck time of coffee and hope that I stop right before I start seeing sounds That's one of my one of my favorite I don't know if you know like yeah favorite awful thing I get it I get it Like bitch took the ice trees meanwhile this guy is going into a unicorn cave This is better than the what is the orientation of the chicken strapped to your head question the essential part of democracy to me is not that I should spend a lot of time in governing myself, for I have many more amusing things to do. But I want to be quite certain that I can change the

person who governs me without having to shoot him. That is the essence of democracy. You mean herge? Probably. Okay. Well, I mean, yeah. I don't know if that's just, you know, my inner drama queen. Okay, so this is really hard because you're talking about like serious important things to you. The amount of jokes that like I think they're funny as shit. So as I told you last week, we needed to cut the episode in half. So what you are about to hear is the very next sentence from what I had said with no real introduction or reintroduction of Dr. Donald Guillory or anything else. But at the end, he will make book recommendations. we will have plugs and things like that.

So if you have just found this episode, you need to go back by one and listen to the introduction and all of the history and the context for our examination of Birth of a Nation as a horror film with Dr. Donald Guillory. And then you can sit back and enjoy this one. So if you've already done that, welcome. If you haven't, you're a monster. We have a social contract. You should try to keep it. Anyway, without any further ado, back to the episode. So, Dr. Gene.

I don't think it's going to be necessary. Okay. You said it's a horror film. 100%. Do it. Well, I often would get into arguments with people on our show, The Necronomy.com, when we used to be on. Because people would listen to some of the episodes and like, well, this movie's not horror.

And it would be something like Stand by Me. We never got to do Stand By Me. We've talked about all these different films. And we'd never use the excuse. Oh, it was written by a horror author. We did Shape of Water. And there were people who were so angry that, like, this is sci-fi. I'm like, what do you think sci-fi falls under?

Right. This whole movie is horror because it's about people being alone. And the only people that they feel safe with, at least these two people that are supposed to be alone, is with each other because they're outcast. That is just general fear right there. I'm alone. nobody else out there for me. But for birth of a nation, when we talked about it, I pointed out that this is the first

full feature-length horror film because other people will say there's other horror films that came up before. But this is the first feature-length epic, long horror film from start to finish because it is talking about this delusional mindset that exists within lost causers, which is, well, we would have won the war. It, you know, everything was stacked up against us. Or it becomes, well, we were invaded by the North because we wanted to be a free country. And then, you know, there's a litany of other excuses that are given.

But this film demonstrates where a lot of people get that, as far as a lot of people believe it, get that mindset of, oh, things were so bad during reconstruction. They weren't. historians, and I will start with sociologists like W.B. Du Bois was pointing out all the stuff that could have happened and been completed. We had a civil rights bill in

1866, but there was no executive, at least executive push with it as far as any type of teeth or enforcement. But then they came up with another one in 75. Yeah. We had the Union League that was just whipping the clan's ass. So it was an issue at

we're not going to tolerate domestic terrorists that are trying to up in domestic tranquility. So when it comes to the horror, the horror is from this fantasy or this fantasy world that has been built up in like white supremacist mind of, everything was so much better before slavery. Right. A 21st white supremacist's mind, they will argue everything was better, 1953, because Brown versus Board of Education happened in 1954. It is just a paranoid, southern segregationist, cocaine-fueled fever dream. Like these are all the things that my grandpappy's grandpappy told him about what was like after the war. Well, this is why we have to treat these people this way, because this is what's going to happen. They're going to take your women.

Oh, you know what? They might not take your woman, but they might take your daughter. And there's always this sense of, oh, well, those Negroes are obsessed with, well, I'm just going to quote the movie. They're obsessed with asking, where do white women in? That's the focus, right? And if you look at any writings of any African Americans during that period of reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, that is not even the first thing that comes up. The first thing that comes up is, well, one, freedom is the first thing, right? then the thing is family, the idea that I'm going to have family, some security,

you know, I'm going to have a religion as far as a church I'm going to go to, so I can practice my religion, that I'm choosing. I'm choosing my name. Like those are all as far as on the short list of things. And none of those things are, I'm going to marry a white woman. I've got to do it. It's the American dream to the point where that has become such a trope and a joke that, When you look back at it on this film and you can see the same type of paranoia that people have about, well, you know, I don't want too many of them going to school with my daughter.

Right. Or the gentleman, I think it was like, I'd be a nice when I say gentleman. The parent that would not shake the black principal or black superintendent's hand, I'm sorry, would not allow his daughter to shape the superintendent's hand at graduation. Right. And intervene so she wouldn't touch him. We have white supremacist organizations all around the country, but we've got somebody in office, or at least an administration office, that is not concerned with that. But the film itself, when you're talking about the end of the war, you've got this uncertain period. President Lincoln's been shot.

Andrew Johnson is not worth a damn. And Thaddea Stevens dies not too long after that. May I interject one more thing for flavor here. in many ways this is a post-apocalyptic film too yes yes which is a staple of a lot of horror so in in many ways for white southerners and that's oddly enough that's a lot of the people who fled to either white southerners or white southern sympathizers

fled to or not fled to move to Hollywood to make movies Buster Keaton famously was a huge fan of the Confederacy it's a goddamn shame because I love his work but you cannot deny, especially with the general or steamboat Bill Jr., that he has absolutely clear, and he's been quoted as saying things about how the Confederacy were ever the underdogs. But you have this, in Hollywood, this idea of post-Civil War is post-apocalyptic. Right. Yeah.

And it is like that for a good number of people. because it's not just like that for the white southerners. So, you know, in making this film to speak to them, it's worse for black southerners because you're completely upended. Whereas if you're a white southerner who had land, you at least still have your land. Right. If you had that.

But yet, as far as all the different elements that come in, not as far as getting into different genres, but the racialized elements that are here, and the film itself, I say the stuff that gets referenced. represented as far as the general things, the anti-misagination law and the way in which all these black men start leering at these white women in the balcony, the fear that this is going to happen. The black men whose feet are on the desk. Yeah. They bust out the chicken and the watermelon.

Yeah. Like all those things, right? So you can look at it as one, I'm fearful because these subhuman things are going to now be in charge, right? then you fast forward to this idea of the sexual assault taking place or the attempted sexual assault because that's one of the scenes where it's this one person in black face, a person who's pretending to be a black person is chasing this white woman down. Yep. And she's saved from being raped, right?

Rape being used as a horror device is way too common. But in this film, you can see it as, I don't remember one to call it purposeful. You see it as useful because it gets into that mindset of what those segregationists were saying and what they're fearing. This is what can happen. And if you're a young white woman who's watching this film, if you didn't already think this was going to happen to you, it can happen to you. So it's okay. Go ahead and grab tighter onto your man on the street if you see one crossing because if he's not holding on to you typely enough, that guy's going to run away with you. Now, the ending of the film...

May I interrupt there to address that scene. So Gus is a veteran of the union. So I keep coming back to like there's some zombie action going on here. And this predates all zombie movies, by the way. But there's some like zombie type action here, these mindless hordes. And here's somebody who had been used by the union. That's kind of the narrative. And he's walking around.

fairly shiftless, fairly without purpose, but now that the law has been passed by the majority black legislature, which, by the way, they're in kind of a legislative pit, and so you have them geographically in a lower spot, too, and they're leering up at these women. And cheering on this as like their first legislative act, which is the ability to marry white women, which I just like to point out with that is that the like the women's agency is nowhere in this film, which is which is key to a horror film. And so when he starts leering at the hero's little sister, because it's his, you know, that could be your sister.

He says to her, it's legal now. I can marry, and I think he says, yeah, Y, E.H. and he points to the stripes on his shoulder and basically says he wants to marry her. She runs instead of like, no thanks or anything like that. It's foregone conclusion. And she gets chased all over Hell's Half Acre. She runs up to the top of a mountain.

And the thing that saves her, Ed, from the predations of Gus who wants to marry her, which means he automatically wants to have sex with her right then and there, the thing that saves her is suicide. Right. She jumps to her death. And now just real quick, I show that scene to my students. And then I show the scene from The Last of the Mohicans.

After Magua has killed Nunklans, and I show them, and it's beat for beat. And I'm like, okay, we just studied this movie. We know how racist it is. Here's something that won the Academy Awards. 70 years later and it's beat for beat there's no way that this is accidental look at it's the blonde sister

he's the darker native person his face is painted half black he is you know and he's doing and you can see scene for scene and then she jumps to her death and you know I always like to highlight that for the kids I'm like this is Phil McLore

like you can say that he was doing an homage to this movie but look at the movie he chose to do an homage to to. And it's a beautiful movie, The Last of the Mohicans, but also. There's some problem not available. Boy, howdy. But so in Birth of a Nation,

that scene, she's saved by suicide. So the message here to a white woman is if a black man looks at you, death is a better option than the possibility that he would want to marry you. Because if he wants to marry you, he's going to rape you. which yeah and and and then you have that the at least the ending scene which you know a lot of people will remember it's it's one of the more notable ones yeah but i'm sorry i'm thinking about the clan riding in the town i'm sorry oh okay but the the idea that these people are the heroes these individuals are the heroes right yeah and with this film coming out in 1915 when i

talk about it being a horror film i'm not just talking about what's represented on screen which you've got all these horrific elements. Whether we're looking back out on 2026 or in the time of 1915, there were leaders, not just from the NACP or Urban League, but you had community organizations that were coming out against the film saying that this is disgusting and offensive. Yep. Having the film banned in some places because the issue with the film was that it was inspiring people to go out and commit violence and interviews as far as with individuals who

have participated in these, I'm sorry, participated in going to see the film were asked, and they said, I'm sorry, they asked their impressions of the film. And one individual who was, quote, I can't remember it was the New York World Herald or what it was at the time, stated, I, after seeing this movie, I just want to kill every N-word I can find. And this isn't something that was a throwaway as far as this is a clickbait or anything like that.

You had violence in cities where this was shown to the point where when DW Griffith does do, oh, we're going to take it on tour for five years. When it comes to Phoenix, the city council as well as, because the Board of Decency, I think is what they called it. They ruled, we're not going to have the film in town. We're going to ban it because it's offensive.

And as a result of them banning the film in 1916 from the city limits, it showed for maybe two weeks before the ban went into effect. But because that film was not shown in the Phoenix City limits, that they did not have the same boom with respect to the clan as everywhere else the claim does not come to Phoenix until 1921. And when they show up, they don't have enough membership to really survive. They get so desperate. I'm going to wait to see how I'll freak down how shop to you are.

They get so desperate for membership that they reach out to the black newspapers in town, the Phoenix dispatch, and inform them that they're willing to accept black. members for their chapter so they have enough members yes yes Ed I can say yes Ed we're all the same under the sheet what and now I'm thinking of Mel Brooks I am as well absolutely I am as well yeah that's why he hit us with the quote earlier But they got the film banned because the local community saw the violence that was taking place in other cities. And what was wild about this, because I hate respectability politics, but I understand sometimes you've got to play it. That the city leaders, I'm sorry, William Crump, who was one of the leading civic activist in that area.

And he had a little bit of money. He started like his own fruit company in the area. So he was one of the few black residents that white people listened to because he, you know, he had money and he had employed people. He was a, he was very active in the city. So he wrote a letter to the newspaper, which it is rumored that the newspaper, the, the, the Arizona Republican is now the Arizona Republic. But the founder and the editor of the Arizona Republican was the leader. leading clansman in the state. He writes a letter to the newspaper in 1916 because you have a state,

you have, you have clan throughout the state, but they don't have an official Phoenix chapter. So then he writes this letter and it's this, you know, we Negroes, we pay taxes and we are participating in the city. We work and we do this. And I'm sure that no good Christian white person would want this film in town to disrupt the order that we have and the safety of this city. We want to make sure that it stays a safe city for white as well as Negro and that we can live together in harmony. Basically calling out and saying like, hey, we don't need to have this film here. Right.

Because bad stuff is going to happen. And it ends up, you know, he ends up forming this councilor becoming part of this council where they get the film banned because throughout when the show, excuse me when the film is showing one of the things that i i always ordered my students and if you don't have this i'll i'll try to send you the film company sent out advice notices or advice letters to all the theaters oh i want this i never knew what they were until i worked for a movie theater and this was to take us back into nerd history this was 99 when uh star

wars uh phantom menace had come out sure and we got the letter from from um from George Lucas. Yeah. And it's stated, here are all the things that need to have, it needs to be THX, it needs to be on this frequency, it needs to be in this type of theater. It needs to be this, this, this, that somebody posts out the door to make sure nobody is, and somebody inside to make sure nobody's recording and nobody's sneaking in. When I saw, show this advice letter to my students, I tell them about the advice letter that we got from from Lucas Arts. And then I show them the birth of a nation one, which is just shows all the information as far as to fill in for the theater, what theater, what theater, what theater. your manager's name is, all that stuff.

And then it is very important that your projection machines are well-oiled and thoroughly cleaned in order that best results are in-tate. It is vitally important that you have a piano in tune, international pitch, and three music stands with lights attached for our musicians as well as shaded lamps atop the piano. Then it talks about, you know, cut slides, promotion stuff, you know, send it back to us. We'll have some out to pick it up. Please bear in mind, and this is in all caps. Wow.

Negroes must not be admitted to birth of a nation under any circumstance. The fear was black people were going to go to the movie theater and cause some type of disruption. Black people didn't want to watch this movie. They did not want to be there. He even understands how racist this movie is. It's not an issue of segregating the audience, the idea that no black people in any of these performances are allowed to. to be in the building. Wow.

So when I talk about it being a horror film, it's about the effect that it has in the real world, as well as the effect that it has on its audiences, where it fills those audiences with paranoia about the past and about their present. And for those individuals that see the film, now they're going to take actions or take steps outside of that film. So you have people that, oh, sorry,

my wife's coming back, that's the garage, hold on one second. Oh, sure. Or can you hear it? No, no, it's fine. Oh, well, keep going on. Carry on. I'm sorry, where was I? So people have this huge paranoia, and now that they've seen it.

Oh, okay. So now that they've seen it, you have people that are going to be actively joining the clan, and you have women that are supporting the clan. Women's chapters. Yes, and here's what even goes further, because it's going to lead to a book recommendation. In Indiana, at the time, the late 19th, early 20th century, when they were based in Indiana before they got shut down, or before they, well, before the second shot out about clan leader. Yeah.

The women in Indiana, who were wives of these clansmen, wanted to become members. And they told them, we don't accept women. So these women went out and formed their own chapters of the clan throughout Indiana. And as part of this, and this is, you know, of course, related to the film. They see, when you're talking about agency not being existent in the film, they see this is the opportunity. We'll form our own clan chapters in Indiana. And then what we'll do is we will communicate with every women's clan chapter to ensure that the policies that we want at the state level are abided by, not as far as the state legislature, but the state level

as far as Klan leadership. So they put women on school boards. They put them in classrooms. They put them everywhere to ensure that you did not have any undesirables. And in one instance, they talk about how there was a principal that was going to be hired for the high school or middle school or whatever school it was. They showed up to protest this, or to oppose this person's candidacy for the position because he was Cass. Catholic. We don't want the Catholic Church educating our children. Right. And the idea that because you have a Catholic principle that somehow he's going to cause all of your children to convert to Catholicism, there are better reasons to convert to Catholicism than a principle.

But you see how all this is starting to play out, at least in the real world, you have the 1919 Red Summer as far as you have mass. racial riots and racial uprisings that take place. And it's related to this. Can I rewind you back to Indiana for just a second? Oh, yes, yes. Number one, that state did not give women suffrage until the 21st Amendment. Number two, Indiana is, if I recall correctly, where Notre Dame is located. Yes.

Notre Dame. Yeah, South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame got its mascot name because there was a large number of Irish kids who went there and they beat the shit out of the clan when they tried to come through. And they pushed the clan back. It's the only time where I'm like, okay, you know what?

Having the Irish as a mascot, they earned it there. Like, that's totally. I had an interaction where somebody's like, why are they the fighting Irish? It's like, because they kicked the shit out of the clan. Yeah. I was like, I don't like Notre Dame, but I will never disrespect their mascot. Right.

I will never disrespect their mascot. So if your focus is on at least responding to, I guess, this type of ill treatment proactively and directly, you, I'm going to say terror. Yeah. You deserve all the credit possible. Because, again, you have people that are now becoming organized because of this. film and then building their organized organizations and infrastructures even wider to the point where they're marching on DC in the 1920s. Yeah, 25.

They had 125,000 of them where 10 years earlier they didn't exist. And this movie created cosplay racism because prior to this movie, the clan weren't hooded people. They weren't cross-burning people. They those those aspects of the organization came about specifically because of the movie. Okay, hold on. Yeah. So you're telling me that the image we have modernly of the clan is an American cinema-induced version of why we see ninja wearing black pajamas all the time.

Yes. And if you think about it, you said it's the image we have. Well, the image we have comes from cheap movies that anybody can afford to see. Because the old costumes were a lot more decorative. Like the original one, I'm not going to give them credit for having style because they look horrible. But they were very decorative. As creative as they are with their names as far as the titles, that's how creative they used to be with the costumes. Because when you call somebody, you know, you're the grand.

Imperial Dragon. Right. Or the Uber Cyclops or... Yeah. The exalted high counselor. Yeah. I'm like, okay. Okay, you're a bad guy in Flash Gordon.

That's what you are. But 25 million people saw the movie in the first year. And in L.A. They tried to ban it. And they failed because the judge said, I can find no law that would justify banning it. And then he turned to the black people in the courtroom. and he said, just go home and forget it.

That was what's always taught to people as far as like you go through this trauma or you have a concern and it's, eh, it'll be okay. I'm over it. Why aren't you? I don't care. Why do you? You know, to quote the first lady. Also, by 1929, Anaheim, it's city council, if I recall correctly, was seven out of nine members were clan members by 19. I'm surprised they were still that high because there was a massive raid on the Klan headquarters in 22.

And then, oh, here's, here's, I guess, a side note. This is another reason to be proud of San Diego. San Diego, what happened was not necessarily in response to this film, but in response to the way in which the clan was recruiting due to the film in the 19, in the 1921. in 1922 in the San Diego area that when they set up a clan hall officially set up a clan hall it mysteriously burned down it mysteriously burned down that's my hometown right there yeah right there yes and and what was wild is the no i'm sorry uh china town was gone by now by this time but the asian asian Californians that were living in a encounter near the black residents and his and Mexican-American residents.

I read a couple of things where people kind of chuckled about, yeah, they were supposed to have a clan meeting. Right. They're not going to have one this week. Yeah. I mean, the Lumby, the Lumby tribe in North Carolina. Beat the shit out of them in the 50s. 70.

I'm sorry. I'm thinking about the other one. Yeah, yeah. And took their flag. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Took the flag and took a couple of hoods. Yes. So Anaheim was called Klanaheim for a while because of that. So San Diego is about an hour and a half south of the L.A. Metroplex. And 1,200 people were members of the KKK in Orange County alone. And of course, you've got politicians, Hugo Black, Cotton Tom Helfin, David Bib Graves. These are all politicians in Alabama and one of them in the Supreme Court Justice. They start joining it. The clan was widely successful. Now remember, the NACP doesn't get started until 1912. So it's only three years old. And honestly, they didn't have the energy or the resources to fight this movie as much as Hollywood had to promote this movie. Because Hollywood had the president on their side. Could you imagine?

Oh, God, especially the whole, it's history written with lightning. Yes. that lives rent-free in my head because when I get to that part, again, I have to be measured in the past couple of years. But when I get to that part, I point out, like, think about the power this has, the president. I mean, and this is still that point where you look at the president, all right, well, you know, this guy was in charge. Right. You don't understand as far as their personal history or at least their interactions with individuals. And if you happen to be a white American, you're not worried about whether or not the president is racist.

for the most part. Yeah. But the idea that he's endorsing this film, it boosted the sales of the film because now it's, I'm sorry, boosted attendance because now you have, not that this is the first major endorsement for any movie, but you have a major endorsement behind this. By the federal government.

And by several senators and several judges, because they didn't just show it at the White House, they showed it at several hotels, William Monroe Trotter led a protest against it I believe in Boston and it was because black people were denied

the right to buy tickets to the movie following the advice sheet and so Trotter and ten others were arrested by over 250 police officers who were on standby at the theater now most of the police in Boston were Irish and this is not the first nor the last time that the Irish were deployed against another group

because with Sacco and Vansetti when they were murdered by the state, and I will say those words, when they were murdered by the state. I mean, they were. Yeah. Anybody looks at the cases like they were railroaded. Oh, if you look at what the judge said while he was golfing, he said, did you see what I did to those anarchist bastards? Like, but when they were murdered by the state, their funeral, turned into a race riot between the Italians and the Irish.

So the Irish getting deployed to, you know, keep oppressed another group in Boston is on brand. About 12 major cities. We don't have to talk about the bus boycotts that the busing riots that they instituted. Oh, in the 70s? Oh, God. Jesus. About 12 major cities banned the film.

Often after meeting with a delegation of black citizens in that city, like you said in Phoenix. Three states eventually banned the film. I couldn't track down which states those were. I had that in a note somewhere. I think Kansas was one of them. I think so. I remember.

I know there was a Midwestern state. Yeah. Probably was not Oregon since they were. No. No, it wouldn't have been. Now, Dixon and Griffith both wrote letters to the press in response to all these protests, straight up saying that Griffith, said that the film was, quote,

an influence against the intermarriage of blacks and whites. And that's his defense. Dixon called the NWACP the N Intermarriage Society and that they were only taking a stand against his movie because it opposed the marriage of blacks to whites. Griffith also said when they called him out for the inaccuracy, he said, the public should not be afraid to accept the truth,

even though it might not like it. but but history does not repeat it rhymes yeah yeah yeah the argument the argument you're trying to defend against isn't about it being an ugly truth it's about it being fucking wrong well so he goes on go ahead no go ahead okay you're gonna get apoplectic here. I'm going to give you a stroke tonight. He was indignant that black people would stand

against the film and he defended it like I said and he wrote a pamphlet titled The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America. Oh, he should have a podcast. Oh, I'm going to, hmm, where is this fucker buried? I, some, it is a

general bathroom, wherever it is. I have I have it, yeah, I was going to say, I have an urge, I have an urge to travel to take a leak. Right. It's just LA. Yeah. I think it's still in that. In that famous cemetery for like Hollywood folks.

Yeah. It might be there. Forest Lawn. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well,

next time, next time I'm in the Los Angeles area. I don't know. No, no. I take that back. He's not.

He died in L.A. He's buried in Kentucky. Oh. Because of course. Because of course he fucking is. Okay. Coward. So,

I might have to go up to a convention in Kentucky. His pamphlet painted reformers as the actual devil. They likened Griffith and his movie to Joan of Arc, Jesus Christ, Christopher Columbus, and Socrates. Called a dragon censorship and called the movies the quote, Laboring Man's University, which sounds as Jenny McCarthy as you can. I went to the University of Google, right? I have a bunch of quotes here by different people talking about it, but there was a study done in it in 2021 by the economist,

famous liberal rag, of course. It said that on April 24th, a white man murdered a black teenager in Lafayette, Indiana, after seeing the film. And according to the economist, lynchings went up by 500% after it was released. Yeah, and Mark Twain had a great... essay is called the United States of lynchard. I'm saying it's great.

It has a fitting essay about this called the United States of lyncharddom. And I can't remember if it comes out. It's written before or after the Klansman is written. But in talking about it, he points out, it's like, well, the reason why nobody's, I'm sorry, why everybody, people are still getting lynched is because no one is standing up to stop the lynching. Right. Not the government. It doesn't need to be government.

It doesn't need to be in the military. It needs to be somebody in that crowd. Yeah. It needs to be somebody there. Yeah. And he goes so far as to like read his, I mean, even though he's from Missouri, read his fellow Southerners the filth because he says, we need to stop setting missionaries to other countries and to Africa.

We need to send Christian missionaries into the South because that's who needs to be, who needs to learn to love their, excuse me, love that neighbor. Yes. And he just goes hard. Yeah. at them and says this is this is your problem you started this right now do something about it yeah now this movie also led to all kinds of merchandising and i have here a list of the merch no brooks oh oh oh i'm sitting here like i'm sitting there like david has done his research oh yeah

i was like i was going to mention that no he's damn he's got yeah well it's So Ed and I have different imposter syndromes. Mine causes, because Ed is the more literate of the two of us because he reads fiction and he's read a lot of it and he does history. I just do history and I translated a dead language. So I always feel like I have to like over prepare so that I can be on his level. I'll let him speak to his own some other point. But I'm going to tell you, but I'm going to cut you off to tell you this. Okay. And I'm wagging my finger as I'm doing it.

Yeah, yeah. I like it. Impostors don't have imposter syndrome. Oh. Oh. Oh, shit. Take that with you for the rest of your life. So I can't remember who told it to me because I was like, I feel I have imposter syndrome. She said, Impostors don't have imposter syndrome. Ooh.

Look at how confident. Yeah. All these AI dipships are. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All these finance bros, all these people who, you know, in the Manistpheme. confident and dumb and confident and wrong. Yeah. Because they're impostors.

Oh, God. You know what? You know who doesn't have imposter syndrome? School administrators. Oh, yeah. There we go. There we are. You're talking about a God complex there.

I'll tell you some stuff off camera. I'm going to have to process that. That's, wow. Holy shit. Okay. So here's a list of the merch. hats, aprons, pot holders, and hand towels. Now, those last three I bring up specifically, because who uses those, Ed?

Wives in the kitchen. Exactly. Now, that year, Halloween, saw a huge uptick in KKK robes and costumes. Fuck me. Ushers in the movie theaters also worn them in New York screenings. Oh, God, no. Oh, it gets better. they had KKK-themed dances and balls in New York.

You said better. That's not better. You lied. No, well, because it's just, you know, white people dancing. Oh, fuck. But they also, white ministers said that the film wasn't racist, so it's cool. But it's something that black people should be proud of since the movie shows how far they'd come. See, I'm thinking about all this because that's the movie.

I start with for the African American, African American film and television course. I told all my students who want to take it to the fall, I'm like, we're starting with birth of a nation just so we can talk about how people are represented and misrepresented, which leads me to, you have a direct response from Oscar Meshaw within our gates because he flips it as far as this idea of D.W. Griffith's focus on black men wanting to sexually violate or sexually possess white women. And he flips it and shows a white man trying to seduce and go after this one black woman.

And this spoiler alert, he finds out because they share the same birthmark that that was his daughter that was a product of a woman he raped before. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. So it was Oscar Bishaw at the time. He's like, no, I'm going to give you a representation that's more accurate than what you're talking about here.

and he used actual cases to talk about it. But the whole story is, it's this guy who wants this woman who is a mixed race, this white man who wants this woman of mixed race because he finds her so attractive. He's always being called towards her. And with that, you can think about the dynamic, I'm sorry, the juxtaposition of the white women

in D.W. Griffith's film and the black woman in this, where that was a lot more common as far as the sexual violence towards enslaved women than to free white women. And then even in Jim Crow, there were these, strong Thurman. I hate that story that people tell about, oh, well, he, he had an affair with the domestic that worked at it. He raped her.

Yeah. He sexually assaulted her. There's no affair. There's no control. I'm sorry. She has no control, no agency. She was a domestic in the South in the 1920s. Yeah.

I'm sorry, earlier than that. 40. Well, he's strong. Yeah. No, it was before then because he lied. about his age to get into World One and then lied about his age because it's too old to fight in World War II. Okay. So I think it was it was either before he, I'm sorry, it was when he came back from World War I.

So it was in the 1920s. Okay. Where he sexually assaulted this woman. Right. And his, not his daughter, but I guess what would have been his granddaughter came to the funeral. And I hated the way it was presented because every conservative was pointing out, he said, oh, yeah, he was a very complicated man and complicated figure. And all I would think about, all I think about since then after seeing within our gets, I'm like, that was what his, I'm sorry, what her mother or her mother experienced was

that type of sexual violence. You can't say no. You can't escape it. Right. You can't use death as an out. Right. It's, there's no one who's going to protect you. And anyone who can protect you is going to get in trouble, if not more trouble than you would have

gotten into or at least gotten into just by telling someone. it's often on you to protect them from their own reaction to that. Yes. So that creates rifts within the family units. And you would have very, I guess, controlled moments where people are not talking about the violence that took place against them because, like you said, I don't want my husband to respond and go and attack this man or kill this person. But in a case of, gosh, to bring it back to Louisiana, and Boston, for that matter. but oh my gosh not Robert Parrish oh my gosh the Boston Celtics legend that the trophies Larry Bird no no Bill Russell no no Larry

yeah Robert Parrish was the big chief he was the center that just got his record broken by LeBron but no you're talking about Bill Russell thank you I don't know why Bill Russell's name was not on my on top of my tip I'm sorry the tip my tongue on this but his parents his parents went through the same situation when before he was born they were living in Louisiana and the mother was accosted by the police for dressing too nicely in fact what they told her was that's right if she if they were to see her dressed as a white woman again they would take her to jail and because the fear of that type of violence as well as sexual violence.

His parents picked up from, I think, they were living in Hammond or Monroe, Louisiana, and they went to California. Yeah. When he grew up there, went to college at UCLA. Yeah. You know, outstanding basketball player, goes pro, goes to Boston Celtics. And of course, he doesn't escape that racial animosity. Oh, no.

Going into Boston because you have people that are actively in calling him certain names. and then they ransacked his house and left fecal matter all over the place. And you have the question that when you have a film like this, it's not something that's just going to be limited to the South as far as people's approach because you're going to have racist attitudes, bigotry, anywhere that people are existing in this country. Yeah. And the film, what it does is it takes advantage of that animosity that some people had, may have had, and amplifies it.

It gives them that reason to do this, which not that I'm ever going to watch this movie, because I don't care to ever watch snuff films, but American sniper, it was the same reaction that people were having when they left the film, they're posting on social media like, I want to go kill some Arabs.

Oh, I want to do this. Like right after the film had come out, you're seeing that same reaction that people had with birth of a nation. And when people have, at least when they express, hey, I don't feel safe with people who like this film or enjoy this film for these reasons. Their concerns are just kind of dismissed as irrational. It's a movie. Yeah.

Come on. But movies impact your real life and your real life impacts movies. Oh, 100%. There was a guy who. Oh, go on. I was going to say, with all the merch. Yeah. When I went to go see Ghostbusters, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster.

Right. Right. You know, but they wanted to be dressed up in sheets to look like ghosts. Right. Yeah. I would have been happy to have a proton pack that I could have bought once I left at the movie theater. But I'm sorry. Oh, I was going to say there was a guy actually in one of the theaters who drew his gun and shot the screen.

For God about that guy. He was trying to protect the white lady on the screen. Yeah. What? Yeah. Keep in mind, this is 1915. Movies are literally 18 years there are so many crazy. Like, when Damien.

keeps bringing stuff up. I'm like, how do you already know this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, go ahead, Ed. Okay. So. Yeah. Okay. I, I, I, I'm sorry. I just, I feel like we're going past that, that too fast. A dude stood up in the movie theater. Yes. Drew a weapon. Yes. Okay. Where did this happen? So, uh, God, I don't. have where it was. But it's during the scene where the white woman is running from Gus. Right, right, right.

Yeah. Okay. So the man the man has a gun in the theater. Yeah. That is loaded. He stands up and shoots the screen. Yes.

We're only 18 years removed from the Lumer brothers showing a train coming into the station in a basement in France. Right. And everybody panicking. Yes. I understand.

I like on an intellectual level, I understand that. But on an emotional level, I can't wrap my head around. You can see that it's projected on a screen. Here's what I like to think happen. He was trying to impress his date. Like, see, I'll protect you. Oh. That's the only thing.

I could imagine. You know what? Because the other story I've heard is that he said something like, take that N word. Yeah. As a way to kind of like, but I mean, the accounts differ. But the one thing that is clear that, yeah, he shot the screen. Yeah. So.

Wow. Okay. Now, I do want to wrap this up because I want to be respectful of Dr. G's time. Yes. But stop calling me. Don. Don. Sorry, Don.

Okay. I said you can introduce me as Dr. Okay, okay. It just ups our Q factor to have another doctor. Yeah, yeah. So obviously after this, on Thanksgiving night in 1915, William Joseph Simmons, climbs to the top of Stone Mountain, Georgia with 15 other men, of whom were two original members, the OG KKK.

They lit across on fire and started the clan all over again. Now, Dr. Simmons was not a doctor, although he had people call him doc since he'd done some medical training at Johns Hopkins University. But then he dropped out to go fight in the Spanish-American War. He was also a former minister, but he was Methodist. Start to see a connection here. Yeah. And he belonged to 12 different fraternal organizations and two different churches.

He was influenced directly by the movie, and we know for these reasons. He burned a cross. That was not originally part of the KKK practices. It was depicted in Birth of a Nation, taking from the books and the play. They wore white robes to it, so cosplay. That came to the movie by way of Dixon. In December, he and his new organization began parading on horseback in robes, pointy hoods, mass parades were not anything from the original KKK.

They would do ride-throughs. So he declared himself the Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire of the Knights of the KKK. And they decided that the way to gain membership was to centralize their Americanism. Now, remember, it's 1915. Amongst their hallmarks, it's not just for southern people who ate black folks now. It's we are Protestants, we're guarding America, we are pro-Americanism, and we're protecting white womanhood. and in his pamphlet from 1917 called the ABC of the Invisible Empire he said that they were there to quote

to shield the sanctity of the home and the chastity of womanhood to maintain white supremacy to teach and faithfully inculcate a high spiritual philosophy through an exalted ritualism and by a practice of devotedness to conserve protect and maintain the distinctive institutions rights privileges and principles and ideals of pure Americanism. Three quarters of all Protestant ministers

ended up as dues paying members of the KKK within five years. Oh, I got one for you. That's going to even shock you a little bit more. They offered free memberships to memberships to ministers in some states. So they would be able to use the clergy. Yes.

I'm sorry, to recruit the clergy. Yeah. No, that after everything that we just heard out of out of the quotation from that pamphlet that does not surprise me yeah you know the thing that occurs to me though is why is it that they have so consistently why have racist shitbags so consistently been so obsessed with sex like specifically purity is it just because they're not getting laid enough like what purity no it's the idea of purity like it's purity for the women right right well yeah purity for the women yeah yeah yeah not because you know

Curiticulture has gotten expanded to include young boys now. But it was specifically the idea that the person you're going to marry off, your daughter, niece, whoever it happens to be, that person that you're going to marry off has value. And if they happen to have sex, their value decreases. And if they happen to have sex with someone who is non-American, because American for this, I'm surprised some of my students have picked up on it

because they see the different definition of American change so many times. Sure. That it just simply meant white and Protestant. That's it. That was, if you were Irish, Jewish, Italian, Portuguese, Spaniard, if you were any one of the non-good European countries, and at this point, they're not even including anything

that's not English or French for that matter. But if you're German or Eastern European, you are not welcome. Like they are. I mean, these are the same guys that litched a bunch of Italians in New Orleans. Right. Because of a riot.

Which is why we have Labor Day. Yeah. Because Italians were going to go large. I was saying, like, it's not Henry Ford. Yeah. It's not Henry Ford. No, hell no. No, we've talked about Henry Ford on this show.

And we, when we talk about all those people who, you know, we hope they have a particularly hot spot, Henry Ford is right there with him. Yeah. I know that newspaper he had. Independent.

Yeah. So you've got the clan. There's two places I want to go with this. And again, I want to be respectful at Don's time. One is the KKK gets started in 1915 because of this movie. Like there is a direct, within five years, you have the Tulsa Race Massacre. and many of the people in the National Guard who joined in with the white rioters to kill dozens of black people. I think numbering into close to 300, but we don't know the exact number because 37 men were conscripted into building mass graves and burying as many black people as quickly as they could.

But the National Guard that was in Tulsa, while they did defend the Federal Armory from, the white mob. They then joined the white mob, and so did the Oklahoma National Guard who had taken a train in. It took them almost 12 hours to get there. They show up at like 9 a.m. And the massacre has been going on since 10 o'clock the night before. There was an investigation two years later in 22 where the governor was trying to get the clan out of the National Guards. So within seven years, they have so thoroughly infiltrated the National Guard. The National Guard's, the National Guard, the National Guard joined with machine guns to kill black people in Tulsa. In Alabama, no Klansman was ever convicted of any kind of clan-based crime

until I believe the murder of Michael Donald in the 1990s. Yeah, sounds about right. Well, no, there was, died of my Bob Chambliss. He got, as far as the four girls who were bombed in. in Birmingham. I think he might have been the first one. Okay. Yeah.

But it was somebody associated with that. Yeah. But then again, he may have just been Klan linked, but not a Klan member. But he was referred to as a Klan member many times because you don't have a name like Dynamite Bob and you're blowing up like church just because. Good point. Yeah. Just because.

So 40 years go by without a single person being convicted. So there is a direct line between the daughters of the Confederacy. to this horror film and all of the reactions that come after it is people reacting to a horror film and going out and cosplaying their racism all throughout the country. They made the movie their real life.

Yeah. And their reality. Yeah. And because of this horror film, this leads directly to the Tulsa Massacre, which is the first time that bombs were dropped in an American city from airplanes, which one of those airplanes was owned by an oil company, which they had a vested interest in chasing off black people from Greenwood because some of them owned oil.

And you have this direct line that goes straight through those all the way to the 1925 March, all the way to Hugo Black being a justice on the Supreme Court, and all the way to Nixon's moral majority on on many many levels to the point where I will draw the line to evangelicals turning on Carter um it's a little bit more stretched there but you can still like go back and still see the the the trajectories um well and and Reagan campaigning with uh Confederate flags in the background oh yeah in the show in a Choba County Mississippi which is famous for the murder of Mickey Schwerner, James Schwerner and James Schoenny and Andrew Goodman. And that family, the family of the man who was convicted of their murders in 2004,

2005, they still own the land. And you can visit the site in which they were executed, but you got to be very quick because they chase people off of there all the time. I got my soil sample, so they can go to hell. And those three were turned over by the sheriffs to the clan. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And even before that, the sheriff was a clansman. Yes.

One, the sheriff was a Klansman. The, I think, 37 people that were deputized were Klansmen as well. Yep. And it was, I mean, it's clear to anybody outside of Mississippi. I'm sorry, it's clear to anybody inside of Mississippi, but the clan was running so many things. Yeah. But to the outside. it was always, well, you know, it's just racism and they're just backwards and not noticing that there's an entire infrastructure that has been built for decades that's been exploited for decades off the idea that, well, we just don't want to mix.

We were fine having these people. Actually, I'll give you my formula here. When it comes to segregation, you have the five senses. Only four of your senses are being used during segregation. So it's the idea of you don't want to see the other. you don't want to hear the other. You don't want to smell the other. You don't want the other to touch you. In the south, the adage is,

it doesn't matter how high you get, just don't get too close. It doesn't matter how close you get, don't get too high. Right. As far as like, don't think you're above your station. Like, we can live close to one another.

We could even be integrated. Great. And then for the north, and for the west, you can kind of mix it up as well. But for northern sites, it was typically understood that it,

doesn't matter how you get, don't get too close. Oh, yeah. So you're going to have the racialized segregation within housing to where in 1951, you have people in, uh, in Cicero, Illinois who had been influenced, uh, by, by the clan and by clan adjacent organizations. When the Clark family moved into an apartment building in 1951, they all showed up. Mm-hmm. Tore all this stuff out of the building, burned it. And the only people that were charged with a crime were the Clark family and the, the property manager. So I've got two additions to that. One, here in Sacramento, where Ed and I are both based around and out of.

Up until the early 2000s, the housing covenants still included terms where you don't sell to black families. And this is this capital of California. And there was a big debate as to, well, obviously this is bad. What should we do about it? And a lot of people like, we need to erase it. And the historians were like, no, cross it out. Yeah.

That way we recognize and we can still read it. Like if you erase it, you are doing a huge. So that's number one. Number two, in Levittown, or no, not Levitt. Well, okay, 2.1A in Levittown when the first black family moved in, one of the first phone calls that they received was from a white neighbor who just yelled into the phone. I will never let my kids drink chocolate milk again and hung up the phone. which you had to think that out oh you remember the hate mail you remember the death threats i got

and the hate mail that i got yeah so uh you you can don afterwards feel free to google me um but i got a letter from a lady from pennsylvania who basically wrote a very similar type of letter to me about how i'm the real racist and i remember thinking about that family and what that phone call must have felt like because the woman on the other land slams it down and I guarantee you she does and I did my part and it's like what like you do you not understand

like yeah just also what lactose intolerance in different ethnographies it just okay so the third one the true number two my parents my biological parents grew up in Dearborn Michigan and in

Dearborn, Michigan, there was one mayor who was in charge for 18 years named Orville Hubbard, and he was called the dictator of Dearborn. He was featured in Time Magazine along with the Hitler of Hoboken. But he had a campaign that he would always run. It was called Keeping Deerborn Clean. Now, Deerborn famously is where the Rogue River plant is and all that, keeping Dearborn clean. And what would happen is if a black family moved in, he would send wellness checks to make sure that they were okay, that nobody was bothering them all night long for days on end and they would move out so um i wanted to

close with uh as far as a discussion of birth of the nation with a quote by uh roger ebert um now he was not alive when it came out but he does review it and he said the birth of the nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil like rife installs triumph of the will it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film and even something about evil. So it's the same thing as like Paul Verhoeven doing Starship Troopers. He's like, I wanted everyone to see the perfect fascist society so that we would all see that it's bad. Right. And my thing is that's what Starship Troopers does. That's not what was done with this film. Right. Well, it's not showing.

I mean, if you look at it in the sense of, let's say you're looking at it from the viewpoint of a black southerner in that, well, a black southwesterner in 1916, you've left the South. And now you see this on film. Right. You saw what you probably witnessed, right? Yeah. So it's going to not come off as kind of a tongue and cheek criticism of whatever this is or. is showing you how dangerous madmen can be or horrible people can be. Yeah.

If I'm that person who's watched in 1915 or 16 or just hearing about or reading about it in the paper because there were a lot of paper features that in this scene, this is what happens. And this scene, they use this type of lens. And this scene, here's the burning of the crosses. If I'm looking at it from that perspective, it's going to be, I'm going to look at it as for no matter what. Because I'm not thinking about, oh, my God, this is so offensive to me. I'm thinking about who's going to already agree with this film?

Who's going to agree with this film after as far as like they saw this movie and now they've changed their mind. So it's not just the people that would, hey, I just want to become a Klansman now. You've got people that they may associate with, no, whatever, they see this. And their first thought is like, yeah, black men are trying to get white women. right to the point where in in 2000 something sorry back in 99 back to the same movie theater with yeah with Star Wars one of my co-workers I'm in college he's in high school and

being you know young people you're working together I think was I think it was 1920 at the time and we're just talking about stuff and I think I was single a couple other people were saying well you know you know I just hope I can get a girlfriend we can go to the movies whatever And we're all just saying like, oh, what are you like? Oh, I like, you know, funny girls that are like girls who are really nerdy. And one of the guys then points that he's like, well, I'm okay just as long as she hasn't been with a black guy before.

And we all kind of turn to him like, what are you talking about? He's like, he's like, you know, I'm fine, you know, as long as they haven't been with a black guy before because I don't, you know, I can't be with somebody if they'd been outside of their. race and i was just like what you know explain this to me yeah because in 1915 1916 you're going to have people who are seeing that feeling that or if they were i guess halfway on the fence thinking that way they see this film they're like oh shit it is dangerous right damn he was chasing her down she killed herself wow i got to protect my yeah you know i got to protect my girl from this right So I'm going to shoot at the screen to bring up your guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So for that group of people, they're not looking at it as a horror film. They're looking at it as a historically based film or historically driven narrative. Right. Whereas somebody who's going to look at it as far as what the danger is, they're going to look for those problems because, one, you're not the person who's the target of the attack. I'm the target of the attack. So now I have to be on guard with anybody I associate with who may have seen. this movie or knows of this movie and you've got to treat them the same way I treat people who say they've read the 48 laws of power or they say the 48 laws of power is their favorite book.

Then I go, we can't have a conversation anymore. Right. You just said that's your favorite book. Yeah. That is the favorite book for the most part of psychopaths and manipulative people. I got to find another bar now. Yeah. Yeah.

There's nothing wrong with reading it. But if that is, man, this is the book I live off. It tells me, it tells you how to deceive. people, cheat people, treat people horribly, manipulate people. I'm like, that's your favorite book, then I've got your favorite movie. It's going to be birth of the nation. Right. Because it's talking about the way that you manipulate people into believing nonsense. Well, I think I think Ebert's fault there is that he is number one, not an historian.

Number two, he was a white guy living in Chicago. Number three, he is looking at it with the understanding, the false. understanding that the people who saw the movie were as educated as he is. Right. And it's like, no, you have to remember everybody could go see movies, like, could afford to, practically. And 25 million people seeing this. Like, it's not that, and it's not like the movie was akin to Paul Verhoven's Starship Troopers

where, okay, I'm going to show people how bad fascism is. Right. And Paul Verhoven ran into the problem of, we were too stupid an audience to, get that. Everybody was just like, yeah, kill the fucking bugs instead of realizing what we were. This movie wasn't even trying to do that. It was pushing that racist narrative. It's not any kind of lampoon. It's not any. And there's no pushback at any point in the film. No pushback. Like even the, there's so many just bad, I'm saying bad scenes historically. There's so many bad scenes where it's like there's, it's just a direct narrative, which is if we don't take

control society, black people are going to destroy society. Right. That's the main thing, whether we're talking about governance, whether we're talking about families, cities, the infrastructure, our women, are, you know, churches. That's essentially, and there's no pushback, whereas we get the pushback with Oscar Mishaw, but again, Oscar Mishaw does not have the same level of production as far as production behind him. Right.

And the support behind him to where you can show this film to the, to the same audience. and then have a conversation about this is what birth of a nation is saying here's what within our gates is saying let's have a conversation let's discuss yeah you can't have that opportunity because people are accepting film as a as a former reality yep and accepting that as a former reality means that they can then put it into their own lives as far as that type of action on screen which again i i could imagine how many people probably shot at the screen during the first westerns yeah Yeah. Well, there were a few. There were a few. I mean, people shoot at the movie screen at the theater screen every year. It's just some reasons are stupider than the others.

Every reason is stupid. But each one is stupid than the other. There's a hierarchy of stupid involved. Yeah. Like the only one that I would ever excuse is, oh, I don't know. There was a crime that was being committed or conducted and somebody fired and I fired at them. But even that's stupid.

Why are you bringing guns to the movies? Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. We could go on forever, but to be honest, it's like one o'clock where you are. So I want us to wrap it up. And I guess, Ed, I'm going to ask you what I always ask. What have you gleaned?

Bet you're not an imposter. That's what I want. want you to start with yes number one number one i am not an imposter the fact that i fear being an imposter proves i am not one um and i'm still i'm i'm going to go through the next few days trying to reconcile that but thank you thank you for that um but uh i i you know the the depths to which um people in our country have been capable of being shitty is just a well with no bottom. Mm-hmm.

And it seems like when I feel like we're getting close to it, it branches off somehow. And like, oh, no, there's a trail that goes even farther. And just the level of the level of awfulness on the part of Griffith and Dixon. Mm-hmm. Like, yeah, I'm, I'm still rendered to the point of having to work to find words to respond to the way that they dismissed criticism. Yeah. Like, yeah, I come away with, like, I was, I was disgusted with D.W. Griffith to begin with.

Mm-hmm. But I come away with a new layer of disgust. Yeah. I didn't know I can need it more. I didn't realize that my hatred could burn any brighter, but somehow... Don't do any deep dives. Don't do any deep dives. It's going to get worse.

Oh, I shan't. Oh, no. No, I am fine with the level of knowledge that I have. I don't need to learn anything more because, as Damien said, I might have an aneurism. Because, oh, my God. So yeah, I think as far as what I've gleaned, I think that's that's what I'm going to go with is I have learned to hate DW Griffith even more. And I didn't know Dixon's name before. And now I do.

And I can add him to the list. So yeah, speaking of Chris Jericho. He's made the list. There you go. Well, you brought that back. That was great. Oh, well, you know, I do it again. Ed, what are you going to recommend for people to read?

We'll go you, then me, and then we'll hit Don. Okay. My recommendation is going to be kind of related to this. A historian by the name of David Blight, a couple of years, several years ago, wrote a book entitled Race and Reunion, the Civil War in American History. Yes. And in it, he examines the, he refers to three different threads of, of, memory in regard to the civil war. And what he largely traces, he looks at specifically the, what would you get, the 50-year anniversary. Yes, the Gettysburg of the war.

Yeah. He begins with, yeah, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he begins with that and then he goes into kind of how things developed to that point. Right. Which, by the way, 50 years after this Civil War ended was what year? Uh-huh. 1915. And of course, Woodrow fucking Wilson is in the introduction to the book at Gettysburg.

Yeah. Glad-handed with veterans and then fucking off, which I wish you would have fucked farther off. But anyway. And anyway, so he looks at how. The thread of memory that was that was about reconciliation wound up winning in in white culture, essentially. And the thread of memory that was focused on emancipation had to be got got pushed to the side with the failure of reconstruction and was maintained. within black America and and had to then kind of become the locus or the or the, the catalyst for the civil rights movement another 50 years after that.

Yeah. And so anyway, it's a fascinating read. It's really, really well researched. And he does a really good job explaining how the daughters of the Confederacy and organizations like them were shitty. For lack of a better word, I'm oversimplifying and not being very academic, but that's, that's, that's pretty much what it is. It's a great book. He's an amazing writer.

And if you have the opportunity to look him up when he's interviewed anywhere or giving a lecture anywhere, he also has an amazing baritone voice that he's, he's an incredible speaker as well. So anyway, that's my recommendation. Race and Reunion the Civil War in American Memory by David Blight. How about you? I'm going to recommend. Sorry, Dave. I got to tell this to Ed. Yeah.

You want to know about how shitty the Daughter's Confederacy are? Yeah. The local chapter here for Lafayette County in 19, oh my gosh, 1905. They wanted a statue. Oh, no. But they couldn't decide on where to put it because there were two factions within this one group of Daughters of Confederacy. One was tied to the university. One was tied to the county.

Okay. They decided to have whoever raises the money gets their statue. Both factions raised the money. The ones associated with the college raised theirs first and put the statue at the opening of the university in the circle, the landmark part of the campus. Right. So that's the first thing you would see when you got to campus. The other faction, they got their statue in 1907. The only reason why it's in 1907 is because that's when they finally had the money to fully collected to pay for it.

They put theirs outside the courthouse. Fuck. So that if you are walking into the courthouse, that is the first thing you see. Yeah. Then what ends up happening is at the dedication. day ceremony in 1906 for the one at the university that was relocated to the cemetery. The person who showed up was a gubernatorial candidate. He was wearing a Confederate uniform and stated that this statue is here to remind people that the University of Mississippi is a

white's only institution and will stay one in perpetuity. Wow. A perpetuity ended in 1962. But the idea that this is why the statute was being put here. And when 2020, sorry, when 2020 took place, COVID wasn't the only thing that people were concerned about here. The dedication day speeches were found. And then the university, the state, the Department of Art, and no one could drag their feet anymore because there could not be an argument as to why the statute was there. Right. It started off saying, oh, it's to honor the Confederates.

It was this, da, da, da, da, da, it was honor the students who left. It wasn't. But the fact that this came out and there was no defense, the fencing went up around the circle almost overnight. And then there was just a process of securing the area. And then late one night, so they didn't have to worry about anybody showing it. They didn't announce when they were going to relocate it. Middle night, they took the tapper off, moved it, took the base off, moved it, and reinstalled it in the cemetery. and then the people that were coming to protest its removal,

there was nothing for them to look at. There was nothing for them to gather it. It was already blocked off so you couldn't get access to the thing. And I will tell you, to go back to answer your question earlier, Damien, about winning, I felt that coming here, if I didn't come here, I wouldn't have witnessed something like that. But coming here, I got to see one, history take place. a correction to history take place.

Yeah. And also see how so many things that are related to what we've talked about today are related to everybody's circumstances, no matter where you happen to fit in this country. There's a connection to those institutions that are connected to this film. And this film gave those institutions so much more power and so much more political capital to where they could do things like this, to where, you know, in 1906 is before this time.

but in 1906 sorry after 1906 after the creation of the clan in 1950 the reemergence of it then you start seeing not just lynchings increase but you start having increasing the amount of monuments that are going up as well yeah from 20 or from 15 to 27 it just skyrocketed

and with the shittiest bronze too as we found out when they started taking them down these last 10 years It was some really badly made stuff. Yeah. Like, you know, because low is bitter, I guess. Well, and they'd probably be really sad to know that most of the topers of the statues were made in the north. Yeah.

And they were made for just civil war memorials in general. Yeah. And so the ones that are here in town, or at least one, the one that is on campus, but it's at the cemetery on campus. More than likely, it was made in Pennsylvania. by a statute maker that made a lot of union memorials, all he changed was the belt buckle. Oh. So the only difference is it's the same soldier.

Right. And the belt buckle just reads CSA instead of U.S. Wow. Yeah, I had read that previously. Yeah. That's, see, that feels like a little victory. That's almost like a countergrift. Yeah.

You grifted the grifter. All right. So I'm going to recommend, thank you for that. I'm going to recommend a book and a movie. Trouble in Mind by Leon Litwack. Anything this man writes has been fantastic. It's black Southerners in the age of Jim Crow. So I'm going to recommend that.

Really, really good companion piece, actually, to race and reunion. The other thing I'm going to recommend is a mockumentary called CSA, the Confederate States of America. And it's basically, it's a British documentary that is doing a counter history, essentially, that the Confederacy won that Lincoln was arrested and lived out his days in Niagara Falls, I want to say. and it is just goddamn hilarious. So they have these little interstitial commercials, and they're all commercials for products that used to be super racist products. So like darky toothpaste, shit like that, like just like super. So they have those interstitched with various, there are people who are deniers that the CSA won

and that they say that it's actually aliens. Like, it's just so... I'm going to watch this. Oh, it's so good. You're going to love it, Don. So those are the two things I will bring up as far as recommendations. Leon Litwax, Trouble in Mind, and CSA, the Confederate States of America. I think you can, like, rent or buy it on Amazon right now.

And Don, what are you going to recommend being the... All right. The letters. Okay. I'll stop with that. The letters just mean I'm not. I studied something and I specialized in that one thing. That's it.

All right. So one thing I forgot to mention and I would kick myself if I did, which is the racial integrity act. So when we talk about how the film works to put this paranoia in people's head or at least expand whatever their paranoia is, you have states that start passing racial integrity acts that ban intermarriage. Yes. And intercourse in some cases are cohabitation.

with the understanding that probably having sex in there. Right. Which gives us the loving case from 1958 when they initially sued until the decision. Right. 67. 67 by the Supreme Court, the idea that you now have to have the Supreme Court weigh in on two consenting adults who married willingly each other in in Washington, D.C., which is the nation's capital, they moved. move back to Virginia and are arrested for violation of the Racial Integrity Act.

So I just recommend anybody to go look up just even Virginia is not the only state that had one. Most of the states in the South had racial integrity codes or acts either at the state level or even at local levels or just reinforced socially. And in Virginia, there was the guy who specifically was going through and checking everybody's individual genealogy because also in 1924, the, this, I forget what it was called, but it's basically the act that determines whether or not you are Native American or not. And so he was sifting out. The Dawes Act.

The Dawes Act, thank you. He was sifting out because if you were Native American, you had federal monies that could be coming to you and stuff like that. So he's making sure that black people are not getting to claim narrative heritage. Like this one guy, he's hyper-ugenicist,

and I didn't even get into the eugenics move, because I've done that for five episodes in a different point. But this one guy went through and determined the legality of people's existence vis-a-vis the Racial Integrity Act. Which is why people need to be careful when they're talking, especially as people chat online about, no, I mean, in a sense of talking about who belongs here, as far as who belongs here in this country. because that becomes very racialized throughout all of American history to the point where it determines whether or not you're free. And I'll get to the books and sorry.

But like in the early 19th century, when I was talking about the petition suits, that was one of the first things when you had refugees coming from Cuba and Haiti as part of the Haitian revolution or from being kicked out of. Cuba by the Spanish government because the Haitians had quote unquote weren't out there welcome. A good number of Cubans and Haitians then relocated to New Orleans and at the port of entry, they were being given whatever their cast was. There were darker-skinned Haitians who were never slaves, darker-skinned Cubans that were never slaves. And so some lighter-skinned Cubans or even white Cubans or white Haitians in figuring this out would then claim those five are my slaves. Right.

And because they were darker skinned, and this person may have been enslaved person as well, some use this as a way to free the others as far as free them in the sense of no one's going to mess with you. Right. They would use the idea that they're passing as white to claim these folks as slaves, and then they would go to the courthouse and have them sign documents like, I want to free them. You know, we're in America.

Let's free them to sign those documents. then you also had the counter up to that where you had people who were who were free black people in Haiti or free black people in Cuba or had been freed during that process. And then you have refugees or people who have been exiled who are white or white passing. Now then use this as their opportunity to become a big player in America now. Right. So, hey, these people are slaves. I want to go ahead and take them with me.

Yeah. Yeah. And there are a good number of cases where people fought back at the docks and then went directly to the court to contest this claim. You know, the books I've got. That kind of just real quick, that kind of echoes the book that you started a reading club around a year or two ago where it was the couple and she was light skinned and he was darker skinned and she played a man as they went. Oh my gosh. I didn't even. I forgot I'd done that later.

William and Ellen Craft. Yes. They escape from Georgia, and she used her ability of white passing to claim that her husband, who was a slave, because they were both enslaved, to escape and then claim that, oh, that's my Negro, that's my slave. He needs to come over here. And she played a man. Yeah, it's race and the, and the playing, yes, yes. And it was also, you know, as far as the gender bending way, which is great, which, you know, with recent legislation, I had to be careful about. what things I could say. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Okay, your books. Your books. Yes. All right. So the books

themselves, I'll go back over what comes naturally by Peggy Pasco would be the top one. But then to deal with the issues of miscegenation and racial integrity because she gets into it deep. Women of the clan, and I can't remember the author of it in the book's not on my shelf right now, but women of the clan and then rise and fall of the KKK. Those are three books. I would say you can read them as companion pieces as far as the rise and fall of the KKK with women of the Klan. Or you can read them all three because you see the racial paranoia and the racial, at least, perspectives that are offered.

Cool. Ed, I'm going to beg a point of personal indulgence here to just recommend one last thing. I recommend everybody go to Donald L.Gillaroy.com. And you can find all of his books listed there. Even Tigris, which has sold out, but token Blackguide, the bastards of the bio, Magnolia Lane, and the lost slave narrative of David Booker. Those are all listed there. That way, Amazon doesn't get your money.

Well, thank you for plug-in. Yeah, absolutely. I'm the worst person to plug any of my stuff. Oh, yeah. I do it for a living. So you might see on my arms there's tattoos. Yes. This one right here is also the thing you see behind us, which is our logo.

I got it when our show was 1,441 days old because that meant that we had lasted longer than the Confederacy. So point of personal pride. And then the other one is my pun show, which I'm going to plug now. So if you are in the Sacramento area or if you have access to a computer, you can actually watch us live. If you go to sackcomedy spot.com, click on the calendars, find the tickets, go to capital punishment. We are there the first Friday of every month. So let's see, by the time this airs, I'm going to guess you missed the June 3rd episode. So go to the August 7th or the September 4th.

buy your tickets online sackcomedy spot.com. Come on down if you're in the Sacramento area. We are going to be live at 9 p.m. at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in downtown Sacramento. We've been doing it for more than 10 years now. And so you need to come on out and watch people do the tournament, see who becomes a tournament champion, and see who can try to take our belt from us at capital punishment,

capital with an O. myself, Justine. We actually, I think Mark is going to come back for the August episode. I know. Awesome. I know. And then we're going to have four people clanging and banging, spinning that wheel, punning and funnin. And we're going to see if anybody can take the belt off of us.

So, Ed, where can they find us? We can be found on the Apple podcast app on the Spotify. Amazon podcast app. and on Spotify. We also, of course, can be found on our website at wauwbwobabwaba.gikhistorytime.com and on YouTube,

where you can go through and watch our ever-expanding archive of older episodes as they get brought online there. Wherever it is that you have found us, please take the time to give us the five-star review that you know Damien deserves for getting us

awesome guests like this. And, yeah, I have you already said where you can be found. Yeah, went out of order. So yeah. Yeah, I'll end it by,

thank you, Don, uh, Dr. Thank you. Uh, it's been a hoot and a holler and I hope that you'll come back. Um,

yes. I'll definitely come back. Oh, awesome. Awesome. Wonderful. Definitely come back. Yes.

Because those things there was like, say, will they hand me back? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, half a heartbeat. Yes, sir. Yeah. Um, so yeah.

I could have a Sacramento one of these days. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. But yeah, everybody go to Donald R.gillroy.com and buy his books because his kids are going to want to go to college too. So.

All right. Yeah. Who knows? I mean, considering all the damage Ronald Reagan did to hire Ed and all the damages being done now, I don't know. It'll be around. Coke brothers.

Yeah. All right. Well, for a geek history of time, Dr. G. Donald Gilar, thank you very much. And I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Laylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.