But the “losers” of the Civil War were not victims. In fact, Birth of a Nation shared its worldview with the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. Griffith used texts from Woodrow Wilson’s ten-volume History of the American People throughout the film. In turn, Wilson screened the film at the White House. This was art as politics, and it was monstrously successful. It remade the business of cinema, the art of film, and American history. Inspired by Birth of a Nation, the second Ku Klux Klan was born, taking their rituals—which haunt us to this day—directly from the film. And then in
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