The Birth of a Movement: How Birth of a Nation Ignited the Battle for Civil Rights

(Paperback)

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A gripping social history of America in 1915, roiled by one of the most controversial films of all time

Reviews

Formerly titled The Birth of a Nation: How a Legendary Filmmaker and a Crusading Editor Reignited America's Civil War "No red-blooded American of today would favor censoring works of art. But while reading Dick Lehr's fascinating new book, The Birth of a Nation, you may find yourself rooting for just that." --Washington Post "A notable new book" --Boston Globe "Lively and well-researched" --Wall Street Journal "The Birth of a Nation is an important account of a volatile moment in the eternal debate over how a free country regulates unpleasant expressions of those freedoms."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution "...a remarkable look at the power of mass media and the nascent civil rights movement at a pivotal time in American history." --Booklist, STARRED review "Lehr's fascinating portrait of simmering American racial tensions moving into the early 20th century, and his spotlight on men and women who, intentionally or not, helped galvanize painful and necessary conversations about civil rights, race relations, and the power of mass media for decades to come." --Library Journal, STARRED review "A powerful rendering of an enduring conflict."-- Kirkus Reviews, STARRED review

Author Bio

Dick Lehr, a professor of journalism at Boston University, has won numerous national and regional journalism awards. He is a former investigative reporter, legal affairs, and magazine writer for the Boston Globe, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting. He is the author of The Fence: A Police Cover-up along Boston's Racial Divide, an Edgar Award finalist for best nonfiction, and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal, and its sequel, Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss. He lives outside Boston with his wife and four children.