The Birth of a Nation Power Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.

Quote #4

INTERTITLE: Stoneman [...] send Lunch South to aid the carpetbaggers in organizing and wielding the power of the negro vote.

Silas Lynch becomes Stoneman's proxy in the South during the Reconstruction. He does the unthinkable thing of helping Black people employ their voting rights—gasp. Unlike us, Griffith sees this as a form of Northern manipulation of Southern politics.

Quote #5

INTERTITLE: The Freedman's Bureau. The negroes getting free supplies. The charity of a generous North misused to delude the ignorant.

While giving people who have been enslaved for hundreds of years a few things to rebuild their lives sounds pretty fair to us, Griffith seems to think that this is yet another way that powerful people are manipulating the South. This dude is your classic conspiracy nut.

Quote #6

INTERTITLE: Election day. All blacks are given the ballot, while the leading whites are disfranchised.

First off, this is so historically inaccurate that it makes our brain hurt. The reality is the complete opposite. Putting that aside, however, Griffith is trying to say that the pendulum of power has completely swung the other direction in the South.