{"product_id":"the-birth-of-a-movement-how-birth-of-a-nation-ignited-the-battle-for-civil-rights-9781610398237","title":"The Birth of a Movement: How Birth of a Nation Ignited the Battle for Civil Rights","description":"\u003cb\u003eAt the dawn of the modern civil rights movement, Monroe Trotter, a journalist agitator, and D.W. Griffith, a technically brilliant filmmaker, incited a public confrontation that roiled America, pitting black against white, Hollywood against Boston, and free speech against the fight for equality.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Monroe Trotter and D. W. Griffith were fighting over a film that dramatized the Civil War and Reconstruction in a post-Confederate South. Griffith's film, \u003ci\u003eThe Birth of a Nation\u003c\/i\u003e, included actors in blackface, heroic portraits of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and a depiction of Lincoln's assassination. Freed slaves were portrayed as villainous, vengeful, slovenly, and dangerous to the sanctity of American values. It was tremendously successful, eventually seen by 25 million Americans. But violent protests against the film flared up across the country. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Almost fifty years earlier, Monroe's father, James, was a sergeant in an all-black Union regiment that marched into Charleston, South Carolina, just as the Kentucky cavalry-including Roaring Jack Griffith, D. W.'s father-fled for their lives. Monroe Trotter's titanic crusade to have the film censored became a blueprint for dissent during the 1950s and 1960s. This is the fiery story of a revolutionary moment for mass media and the nascent civil rights movement, and the men clashing over the cultural and political soul of a still-young America standing at the cusp of its greatest days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDick Lehr\u003c\/b\u003e, a professor of journalism at Boston University, has won numerous national and regional journalism awards. He is a former investigative reporter, legal affairs, and magazine writer for the \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Fence: A Police Cover-up along Boston's Racial Divide\u003c\/i\u003e, an Edgar Award finalist for best nonfiction, and coauthor of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller and Edgar Award winner \u003ci\u003eBlack Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal\u003c\/i\u003e, and its sequel, \u003ci\u003eWhitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives outside Boston with his wife and four children.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"PublicAffairs","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50873893093650,"sku":"9781610398237","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ee2fe9a6-ad50-4eb4-ab5e-0e30fefbd1b0.jpg?v=1737971525","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-birth-of-a-movement-how-birth-of-a-nation-ignited-the-battle-for-civil-rights-9781610398237","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}