Black protest mobilized in advance of The Birth of a Nation premiere on February 8, 1915. The California Eagle, the most influential Black newspaper on the West Coast, published editorials in opposition. Thirty thousand African Americans marched in opposition in Los Angeles. May Childs Nerney of the NAACP mailed “pamphlets by the thousands to the smallest of towns, compiling a list of pending state censor bills.” She called The Birth of a Nation a “deliberate attempt to humiliate 10,000,000 American citizens and portray them as nothing but beasts.”
