U.S.
Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision that racialsegregation in
schools is unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education.
The case stemmed
from elementary student Linda Brown whose black school was miles further away
from her home that the superior white school in her neighborhood. The NAACP
took up Ms. Brown’s case with lawyer Thurgood Marshall (future Supreme Court
Justice) leading the case. This ruling overturned the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson
which established the “separate but equal” accommodation in railroad cars and
was used to justify segregation in all public facilities.
W.E.B.
DuBois is born in Massachusetts. The initials he is known by stand for William Edward
Burghardt.
A brilliant scholar, DuBois became the first African-American to
obtain a PhD from Harvard and became an influential person in civil rights
movements. His first major book was the first sociological study of a black
community (Philadelphia).
His philosophy was completely opposite of Booker T.
Washington, founder and president of the Tuskegee University. “DuBois accused
Washington of selling out blacks by advocating silence in civil rights issues
in return for vocational training opportunities for blacks.”
He helped found the NAACP in 1909. He broke
ties with the group a couple of times before joining the Communist Party in
1961 and becoming a citizen of Ghana in 1963, the year of his death.
D.W.
Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” is released in Los Angeles.
Made for slightly more than
$100,000 (the largest amount ever spent on a film at the time), it grossed over
$10 million worldwide in its 1st year. It was the first film shown in the White House, to Woodrow Wilson.
While the film has been
credited as “groundbreaking”, many cities refused to allow the movie, depicting
the Ku Klux Klan as “the good guys”, to be shown.In many cities where it was shown, riots to
protest broke out. Tickets were $2 when it opened, which was really expensive. It equates to about $17-$20 today.
Director Griffith had the whole script in his head and didn’t write out one word or keep notes. Black characters were frequently played by white actors in black make-up, particularly those who were required to come in contact with white actresses.
The KKK used it as a recruiting tool as late as the 1970s.
It is credited with reviving the KKK, which had been considered dead for quite some time. The same year of the movie's release, the KKK organization staged a 're-birth' in Georgia.
The film inspired many African Americans to begin making their own films to counter the images depicted in this one and to show African Americans in a much more positive light with alternative stories. The NAACP's attempt to ban the film failed.
