Birth of the “Black Rapist”

By Kiera Berkemeyer, with comments by Katherine Prosswimmer and Sarah Ballan

[1] In 1915 D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation exploded from the screen and projected its way into the minds of people across the nation. The majority of viewers were impressed by the film and all that it accomplished. Many delighted in the film’s “extraordinary pictures” coupled with its “historical faithfulness.” Yet other critics maintained that it was a “monstrous perversion of history” (The Independent 21). So who is right? Was this film an accurate portrayal of the Civil War and the events after it? Or was history somehow corrupted by racist values? The fear of miscegenation is a theme that helps to answer these questions.

[2] Griffith places miscegenation at the crux of his plot. He suggests that the black man’s threat against white women’s honor stimulated the white men into action against their black neighbors. Scenes such as the pursuit of Flora, the capture of Elsie, and even the attack on the Cameron’s home (Courtney 63), leave the audience with a feeling of disdain for black men and their vindictive lust. Surely, if Elsie had not been rescued, her hand in marriage and her virginity would have been taken by force. Similarly, Flora’s death was a better option for her than what lay on the other side of the cliff. There is no doubt that Griffith’s film was spectacular, for it caused even those who were, and are, greatly removed from racism to question the black men’s intentions. Yet, the truth is, while Griffith may have convinced himself that he faithfully portrayed history, he really produced a piece of southern propaganda. Likewise, miscegenation, while possibly considered the truth by those who convinced themselves of it, was entirely a “political invention” (Davis 184).

[3] Historically, the “myth of the black rapist” was connected to an earlier illusion: the “myth of the bad black woman” (Davis 174). During the period when slavery was common practice, slaves were considered property. They were the machines of the fields at a time when there were no tractors and the washers of the clothes at a time when there were no laundromats. Unfortunately, this ideology extended beyond basic work and into the realm of sexual exploitation. Connected to the idea of people as property was the idea that slave owners had a “license to rape” (Davis 175). This “incontestable right” was their justification to rape any slave they wanted, whenever they wanted (Davis 175). Despite the magnitude of this injustice, very few slaves spoke out against it. Of course, how could they? Like a stubborn horse on a race day, they were beaten into submission. When it seemed like slavery was near its end, black women finally began speaking out, only to be labeled whores for their previous silence. During Reconstruction, white men used the black women’s so-called “promiscuity” to cover up the truth that they had raped these women. Such an argument was weak, and many times it did not stand up in court. In fact, Joann Little, a black women who was accused of murdering a white man shortly after an attempted rape was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Yet, her “promiscuity” did not go unpunished. In the communities in which people believed she was guilty, there was uproar. Within the same week that she was acquitted, a young Floridian boy was wrongly accused of raping a white girl. He was sentenced to be executed. Thus, when society would not accept the fabrication against black women, southerners made up a myth about black men (Davis 174).

[4] While there is an obvious connection between the two myths, the most widely accepted explanation for how “the myth of the black rapist” came about is that it was used as justification for lynching (Davis 185). (see comment by Sarah Ballan) Lynching, and thus the myth, was in full swing during Reconstruction. While during slavery black men were considered barbaric in many ways, they were not usually wrongfully accused of rape. This was largely because beating a slave during this time period was considered acceptable. When it was legal to beat a slave, there was no fear that the slave would rebel and gain control. Yet when it became illegal to beat a black person, suddenly there was fear: a fear that caused white people to do horrible things. All too abruptly white men felt a push to regain power over whom they considered their “inferiors.” Unmotivated to compromise by the emancipation proclamation, southerners decided that they would continue to beat black people into submission. Yet this time they needed a reason for their actions, and so the myth was born. By framing the rape of a white woman on a black man, southerners were able to successfully convince many people of the “barbaric nature” of the black race. Thus they were often allowed, and even sometimes encouraged, to lynch any black man with “lustful” intentions (Davis 190).

[5] Of course not everyone was convinced by the myth, and they had plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Cynics pointed out that during the Civil War when white women were left vulnerable, surrounded by a majority of black men, no rape charge was ever recorded. It was only after the Civil War, when the men of the south returned home, slaves were “liberated,” and racial tensions rose, that such an allegation even took place. Also, there were many cases in which a white woman who originally cried rape revoked her accusation shortly thereafter (Davis 198). Such signs of fabrication would not have been overlooked in a just society, free of racism, and yet in the South they were. An even more obvious falsehood is the popular author Jean MacKellar’s claim that “ninety percent of all committed rapes in the United States [were] committed by black men” (Davis 179). Many people believed this massive exaggeration, even though the number was actually only forty-seven percent: less than half.

[6] Despite the inaccuracies of “the myth of the black rapist,” white southerners lashed out against any skepticism with ridiculous arguments. Such arguments as can even be seen reflected in Birth of a Nation. Primarily, Griffith and others compared black men to animals. Griffith did this by making several black men in the film look like predators: Gus chasing his prey and Lynch caging Elsie like a little bird. (see comment by Katherine Prosswimmer) Even more obvious were the “Guerilla” fighters who were actually portrayed like apes, claiming their new territory and ransacking the nest. With this animalistic stereotype in mind, the South suggested that raping white women replaced the bestiality that happened while slavery existed. Along that line, it was also commonly believed that black men had stronger sexual urges than white men, just as black women were more promiscuous than white women. Absurd reasoning for this claim included the notion that black men and women had a larger death rate and therefore were biologically predisposed to want to procreate sooner and more frequently than members of the white race (Davis 181). Griffith reveals his belief in this concept by having long-drawn-out romance scenes between white men and women -- in which the men always are patient â€" contrasted with abrupt announcements of lust between the black men and white women. Another argument proclaimed that when the slaves were freed they could not handle being part of the human race. As people from the North began to consider freed slaves equal men, the slaves did not know what to do with themselves, and thus they sought to prove their manhood to the South by raping women. Finally, one psychologist of the time even applied Freud’s Oedipus complex to the situation. He suggested that white people fill the parental role, while black people fill the juvenile role. Therefore the black men, as the sons of white parents, have it within their nature to want to kill their fathers and rape their mothers (Davis 181).

[7] Although many of their arguments were outrageous, it is likely that many southerners truly did believe that black people were different from themselves. Racism was so prevalent in southern society that it was powerful enough to cause fear in the hearts of white women; to some people every black man was a potential threat. This was so much the case that white women would bring their “children to witness the murders of black people . . . indoctrinating them into the ways of the south” and causing them to adopt the same inhibitions about the black rapist (Davis 194). Racism is, after all, passed down through the generations. In a generation in which lynching was common practice and films such as Birth of a Nation were a hit, it is no wonder that the myth was invented and was allowed to endure for so long.

Comments

Katherine Prosswimmer 7/19/12

I fully agree with Kiera's assessment and believe there is even further significance to the scene with Lynch and Elsie. Keira discusses white southerners' tactics to create myths that depicted African-American men and women as sexually aggressive in order to dispel the accusations of sexual aggression directed towards them (the white southerners). This seems to be a tactic employed on multiple levels in The Birth of a Nation. The scene where Lynch cages Elsie is significant in that it depicts, as Kiera describes, the alleged sexually animalistic behavior of male slaves, while simultaneously depicting the slave enslaving the white southerner, which is symbolic of Griffith's desire to equalize the allegations of slavery against white southerners by reversing the role of slave and white southerner. Griffith aims to achieve the same effect that the "myth of the black rapist" achieves, by creating a "black enslaver."

Sarah Ballan 7/19/12

This stereotype situation reminds me of how the Jews were treated leading up to the Holocaust. Berkemeyer claims, “While Griffith may have convinced himself that he faithfully portrayed history [of the Civil War/ Reconstruction era], he really produced a piece of southern propaganda.” Similarly, in the early 1940s, negative propaganda about Jews swarmed the media. When I was on my birthright trip to Israel, I visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, with my group. I saw firsthand the nasty cartoons of Jews as bugs and with large noses and pig-like features. These caricatures were created based on false stereotypes that became more and more widely spread. In order to gain control and get away with shipping the innocent Jews off to concentration camps, they had to be dehumanized first. Once the majority of the public shared a negative opinion of the Jews, the Nazis began taking their rights away one by one. They weren’t allowed to go to school or wear a piece of clothing without a star that said “Jew” on it to identify them from the non-Jews. After most of their privileges were taken away, the Nazis began the process of dehumanization when they took the Jews to camps for mass extermination. The Holocaust is similar to post-Civil War times because the false stereotypes led to “justification” of murder by the KKK.