Parkhurst and Dixon: They can't both be right, but they can both be wrong
By Pat O'Brien, with comment by Ed Tabor
[1] It’s interesting that Thomas Dixon and Charles Parkhurst, both defenders of Birth of a Nation, could have such different readings of the same movie. As Lauren Calabrese points out in her essay on Rolfe Cobleigh’s review of the film, Dixon stated to Cobliegh that "one purpose of the play was to create a feeling of abhorrence in white people, especially white women against colored men . . . his desire was to prevent the mixing of white and Negro blood by intermarriage,†which, to this observer, seems to be an acknowledgement that he does see a depiction of Negroes that would incite such sentiment (more on that later!). Parkhurst, echoing sentiments made by D.W. Griffith in defense of his own film, argues that the film captures, as Sonya Dollins-Colton wrote in her essay on Parkhurst’s defense of the film, the “blacks of forty years ago†not the Negro of 1915. Indeed, when seen this way, Parkhurst and Griffith can, and sometimes did, claim that the film was consequently making a positive statement of the progress that has been made by the Negro since the Reconstruction Era. It seems that both Griffith and Parkhurst are banking on the claim that this movie would not influence race relations in 1915. (see comment by Ed Tabor)
[2] To bring some clarity to the argument this short essay is making and to help illuminate the contradiction between the words of Dixon and Parkhurst, it is helpful to note the words of Francis Hackett in his negative review of the film (called “Brotherly Loveâ€) and surprisingly missing from the essay by Travis Statham. Hackett argues that “since history does bear on social behavior, Birth of a Nation cannot be reviewed simply as a spectacle. It is more than a spectacle. It is an interpretation, the Rev. Thomas Dixon’s interpretation.†Interesting! How can Dixon, the intellectual impetus behind the idea of Birth, “see†a narrative and a depiction of African Americans that would generate the “feeling of abhorrence†he desires,†while Parkhurst fails to see the grounds of objection to the film and dismisses the small prejudices in the film as, at worst, exaggerated and harmless depictions of negroes of years past. Not only can’t they both simultaneously be a legitimate defense for the film, for they contradict each other, but Hackett seems to be onto something. He chooses, and this seems sensible, to react to an intended reading of the film (i.e. Dixon’s) as opposed to the softer Parkhurst.
[3] That does leave the remaining problem of the intended view of the actual filmmaker, but it should be noted that the most controversial part of the film was based on the historical interpretation of Dixon. It boils down to whether one believes Hackett to be correct. It’s interesting to note that Dixon revered Lincoln primarily because he claimed Lincoln, as Dixon did, supported colonization (i.e. sending the freed blacks back to Africa) and did not believe in the social equality of whites and blacks. Lincoln did hold those views until the first years of the war, but certainly Dixon was aware that the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment have no provisions for colonization. Lincoln also did not compensate the former owners and supported partial suffrage for certain African Americans â€" both bold reversals of personally held previous beliefs and forward thinking for a mainstream politician. Essentially, Lincoln opened the door to the citizenship of African Americans, while leaving us with difficult-to-ignore evidence that he no longer advocated colonization.
[4] In a final note, Cobleigh challenged Dixon’s strong objection to racial amalgamation with the fact that many white slave-owners did father children with their female slaves â€" an argument that Lincoln used against Stephen Douglas (and slave-owners) in the well-known Lincoln-Douglas debates that took place in the summer of 1858 during the Illinois senatorial race. While it’s unclear whether Lincoln fretted over racial amalgamation, it remains as a reminder of how far Lincoln’s racial views had traveled in a mere seven years. This is in stark contrast to the racialist justifications of Dixon and the accurate but ultimately ineffective appeal of Parkhurst to the groundbreaking cinematic techniques of the film. Moreover, his appeal to the tremendous educational utilization of the film shows his naiveté regarding the study of history. At best, the film serves as an excellent point of departure for further study of the era and its changing historiography.
Comments
Pat, I found your reference to Parkhurst's sentiments about the film rather interesting. Parhurst's idea that the film's intention was to depict "blacks of forty years ago" is in itself fallacious. As you said, he echoes Griffith. In his letter to the New York Globe, Griffith states, “the events depicted on the screen are not meant as a reflection upon any race or people of today.†Dixon says nearly the same thing regarding African American characters in his book: “I am not attacking the Negro of today. I am recording faithfully the history of fifty years ago.†I think it is relatively clear that this is a really just balderdash (or, to put it coarsely, BS). I find it hard to believe that educated people such as Parkhurst actually bought that angle. It is easy enough to set a controversial story long ago and far away in order to preserve oneself from criticism. However, since the film isn't far away, he makes the claim that forty years is long ago. Forty years is not a long time, when it deals with issues that haven't gone away and are very much alive. Despite Griffith’s efforts to show how African Americans have improved since the 1860s, he often criticizes groups and publications that were the center of Black culture in the 1910s. One more thought. I was a bit surprised when I discovered Lincoln's desire to return former slaves to Africa. It comes up several times in the reviews. I wonder if he was aware of the generally failed British attempt to do this very same thing in Sierra Leone. (see comment by Pat O’Brien)
Ed -- Lincoln believed (prior to the Civil War) that emancipation would happen very gradually (once stating it may take 100 years) and on the state level. That's why, for example, he felt it changed nothing if he signed the original 13th Amendment that made slavery untouchable. He promised to sign it (check out the very end of his 1st inaugural), but felt it made explicit, what was already implied -- namely that the national gov. couldn't touch slavery. Anyway, my point is, and I'm not 100% sure of this part, but I believe he felt it was more plausible for colonization to happen this time around because he felt it would happen gradually and state by state. And I should add that Abe's belief in colonization, while tinged with racialist sentiment, was also partly humanitarian -- he often said the he felt they could not get a fair shake here -- whites were too racist -- and he included himself.
