Racism, Art and History

Alan J. Bozer '75, co-chairman of the Adams House film society, did not know there would be trouble until dinner last Saturday night.

He was eating Shake n Bake pork in the Adams dining hall when Felipe M. Noguera '76, a member of the Organization for the Solidarity of Third World Students, approached him.

"He came up to me and asked if I was planning to show 'Birth of a Nation' [later that night], and I said I was," Bozer said. "He said he felt it was a racist film, and it was insensitive for us to show it.

"When he said that, I explained that the only reason we were showing the film was because of its artistic merit--it was the first really big film to hit America. I invited him to speak before the film--to say anything he wanted."

Noguera declined the offer. He said Sunday that he thought it inappropriate to go before an audience prepared for entertainment and talk politics.

"Birth of a Nation," directed by pioneer film-maker D.W. Griffith and released in 1915, presents a militantly anti-black view of the South after the Civil War. But as the first movie to use moving cameras and night filming, among other innovations, it is generally considered a motion picture landmark.

The Organization for the Solidarity of Third World Students said in a leaflet that Saturday's showing of the film "attests once again to the well-known fact that Harvard University sanctions and participates in the brutal repression of Third World people on this campus and in the communities throughout the country and the world."

When Bozer arrived back in the dining hall at 7:40 p.m. to arrange chairs and set up the projectors, he saw about 30 or 40 protesters milling around the entrance. He went for senior tutor Hugh J. Berryman.

When Berryman and Bozer returned minutes later, Bozer approached the protesters--then numbering about 50 and standing in a semi-circle--to apologize for the film's racism and stress that Adams Film Society was presenting it merely as an example of early cinematic achievement.

"They gave me a chance to present my views," Bozer said later. "But they were adamant that the film not be shown."

The protesters sat on tables next to the projecter and said they would not permit the showing to begin. The stalemate lasted about 20 minutes--until Berryman announced that the showing was cancelled.

The next afternoon, at Kiely's request, Noguera and two other protesters met with Bozer, Knauss, Kiely and Berryman to attempt a reconciliation.

During the hour-long meeting, the three organization members tentatively agreed to support a rescheduling of "Birth of a Nation," providing the showing is accompanied by a thorough discussion of the film's racial content. Bozer said yesterday that the showing would take place about November 15.

Bozer said the film society was trying to get a print of Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," a pro-Nazi German film released in 1936.

"We're thinking of showing the two of them and discussing how film can be used as propaganda," he said. But Bozer said the film society's plans were "very tentative at the moment."

Patsy Fath Davis '76, president of the Harvard-Radicliffe Association of African and Afro-American Students, said yesterday that Afro will co-sponsor the showing of "Birth of a Nation" and has no objection to showing "Triumph of the Will" on the same program.

"It could be educational to show both of them at the same time, providing there was a presentation before them," she said.