Susan Gray and Bestor Cram, directors (Northern Lights Motion Pictures, Inc., 2016)

Birth of a Movement tells the story of the protests against Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith's technically groundbreaking but notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly 1915 film. The protests were led by William M. Trotter, a Boston-based African American newspaper editor and activist. Birth of a Movement links the backlash against the film's portrayal of African American men as unintelligent and sexually aggressive to the rise of the civil rights movement and to present-day issues of race relations and media representation.

David W. Blight, Yale University, and Samuel L. Schaffer, St. Albans School, will introduce the film and lead a discussion afterward.