What was the first American film to be screened inside the White House?

On February 18, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson showcased what was then a revolutionary form of entertainment: the feature film. Wilson, his daughter Margaret, and select guests gathered in the East Room to view director D.W. Griffith’s just completed masterpiece,"The Birth of a Nation".

The president had agreed to host a movie night as a favor to the writer Thomas Dixon, an old college buddy, a fellow Southerner – and an unapologetic racist. Dixon’s bestselling novel "The Clansman" was the basis for filmmaker D.W. Griffith’s three-hour dramatization of the Civil War and Reconstruction, which depicted Ku Klux Klan members as heroes and martyrs. Griffith later bragged to a reporter from the "New York American" that “The Birth of a Nation" received very high praise from high quarters in Washington. Coy about presidential name-dropping, he continued, “I was gratified when a man we all revere, or ought to, said it teaches history by lightning.”

The movie triggered mass protests across the nation. Today "The Birth of a Nation" is considered a virulent brand of hate speech, the stereotypes of blacks embedded in the film – their depiction as lawless brutes and a danger to American values – continue to haunt public discourse about race in America.