During February, our students’ character education classes are focusing on Black History Month. Last week, Program Coordinator Reggie Mays Jr. tackled two movies with the same title and drastically different viewpoints.
Nate Parker wrote, produced, directed and starred in “The Birth of a Nation,” a new film that tells the story of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. The original 1915 silent film by that title told a much different story, making heroes of the Ku Klux Klan and portraying African Americans (played by white actors in blackface) as a sexual threat to white women.
Parker did not work on anything else for nearly two years and raised $10 million to make the film, which swept the top awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Mays used the discussion of the films as a way to talk about the power of names, the history of the Klan, passion projects and, of course, the history of Nat Turner’s revolt.
Before saying anything about either film, Mays asked the students what the phrase “birth of a nation” made them think of. Michael said “a new world,” Xavier said “a new goal,” Isaiah said “the start of a journey.” The title sounded noble.
“If I heard about this movie, with this name, these answers would make sense to me,” Mays said.
But then he explained the premise of the first movie, which used a noble-sounding title as part of its effort to glorify the Klan. Parker’s new film has put that same title to use for a much different message. As The New York Times recently pointed out, this new film is already starting to compete with the old in Google search results.
Program Leader Adrian Fontenette pointed out that racism still finds its way into movies, although in more subtle ways than it did in 1915. Mays told the story of Turner’s slave rebellion, in which about 60 whites were killed, and for which about the same number of slaves were executed. In addition to this violence, nearly 200 other African Americans were killed by white mobs reacting to the revolt.
Lessons related to Black History Month will continue in February, and beyond.
“It’s black history day every day you wake up,” Mays told the students, “because every day you wake up, you’re black, you’re brown. You can’t avoid it.”