Protesting “a Bigger and Better Birth of a Nation”: Lost Causism and Black Resistance to David O. Selznick’s Gone with the Wind, 1936–1940

Abstract

This article traces the history of concerted black resistance to the film Gone with the Wind, whose popularity I argue was contingent on its expression of white nationalist pro-Confederate, pro-slaveholder Lost Cause mythology. By centering the voices of the resistance, this article offers a corrective to previous scholarship that fails to grasp the resistance’s significance or frames it as merely provoked by the offensive nature of the film’s racist imagery and language. Instead, at the heart of the protest was the danger that the film’s mythology posed to black communities if it became entrenched in white national historical consciousness. Activists were correct about the film’s ideological impact, and their protests wielded real influence, altering the film’s final product to be less overtly racist. However, failing to stop Gone with the Wind, while muting its most racist components, contributed to the film’s incredible popularity and its longevity.