Racism rose on back of 1915 'Birth' film

I wanted to write about racism in the United States, and how it was a simple act of watching a film that helped spark a firestorm of racial hatred that still burns today.

On Feb. 18, 1915, Woodrow Wilson screened D.W. Griffith's film, "The Birth of a Nation," at the White House.

Selections of Wilson's work, "The History of the American People," made it into "The Birth of a Nation" as words shown on screen during a silent film -- making Wilson's support understandable.

It is not a coincidence that the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan occurred in 1915. President Grant had run them out of business 40 years earlier.

The heroes of the film are the KKK, who ride, like sheeted superheroes, to protect white citizens -- especially women -- from the marauding violence perpetuated by the freed slaves.

And each time the film was shown, so, too, were the words of President Wilson himself, "It is like writing history with lightening and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

Instead of cutting hatred off at its knees, President Wilson had opened the floodgates of racism, instead.

Diana Skipworth

Geneva