TUNITYarticle, “He Smashed the Color Line: A
Sketch of Billy Pierce.”
Bird, Bessie Calhoun (1906–unknown)
A member of the ambitious African-American lit-
erary circle in Philadelphia whose members regu-
larly published in BLACK OPALS, their literary
magazine. Bird’s colleagues included other Philadel-
phia writers such as NELLIE BRIGHTand MAE
COWDERY. Like GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSONin
WASHINGTON, D.C., and REGINAANDERSONin
NEW YORK CITY, Bird hosted gatherings of
Philadelphia-area writers and artists in her home.
She was an active member of the local PIRANEAN
CLUBand the Beaux Arts Club, and her first and
only published collection of poems appeared when
the Piranean Club was at its peak. Although Bird
focused on traditional themes such as nature and
feelings, she crafted works that prompted ARTHUR
HUFFFAUSET, a fellow Philadelphian who wrote an
introduction to AIRS FROM THEWOOD-WINDS,to
characterize them as “zephyrs.”
“Bird in the Bush, The”Theophilus Lewis
(1926)
A short story by THEOPHILUSLEWIS, drama critic
for THEMESSENGER,that appeared in that maga-
zine in January 1926. The character Marie Steele
is a woman caught between her competing desire
for economic security and passionate romance.
Bascom, a thoroughly boring man, is courting her
when she meets Lester, a charming and self-confi-
dent potential suitor. Ultimately, though, Marie
convinces herself that “a good husband [isn’t] to
be sniffed at” and chooses Bascom. Lewis’s enter-
taining but sobering portrait anticipated the
plight of Helga Crane, the tragic heroine of
NELLALARSEN’s QUICKSAND,and the self-defeat-
ing and confining decisions that she makes about
marriage.
Birth of a Nation (1915)
The controversial 1915 film by D. W. Griffith
that appeared first as The Clansman and was
screened in NEWYORKCITYfor the first time in
March of that year. The script, inspired by
Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman,celebrated
the Ku Klux Klan and the Confederacy. It
mocked celebrated northern antislavery leaders,
indicted interracial relationships, and perpetu-
ated numerous African-American stereotypes.
The film elicited extensive protests from individ-
uals and from organizations such as the NA-
TIONALASSOCIATION FOR THEADVANCEMENT
OFCOLOREDPEOPLE. Emmett Scott, the secre-
tary to Booker T. Washington, was so outraged by
the film that he created a film company to pro-
duce Birth of a Race,a counter-narrative to the
Griffiths production. The NAACP waged a
lengthy four-year battle against Griffith’s film. In
addition to organizing marches, the organization
petitioned city officials for injunctions against
the shows and generally rallied African Ameri-
cans and their supporters to fight against the
racism that prompted interest in and the produc-
tion of such offensive material.Bibliography
Fleener-Marzec, Nickieann. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a
Nation: Controversy, Suppression, and the First
Amendment As It Applies to Filmic Expression,
1915–1973.New York: Arno Press, 1980.
Silva, Fred, comp. Focus on Birth of A Nation.Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971.BirthrightThomas Stribling(1922)
A work by THOMAS STRIBLING, a Tennessee
lawyer and reporter, and recognized as the first sig-
nificant novel by a white American writer in which
the protagonist was African American. The plot
revolves around the life of Peter Siner, a mixed-
race Tennessee native who travels north to Har-
vard for school. He eventually returns to
“Hooker’s Bend,” where he concludes that his
African heritage dooms him to tragic powerless-
ness. JESSIEFAUSETbelieved that Stribling’s work
illuminated the ready market for good literature by
and about African Americans. Like Pauline Hop-
kins, the turn-of-the-20th-century novelist who
claimed that African Americans were most capable
of generating informed, engaging race stories,
Fauset urged her peers that they “who are better
qualified to present that truth than any white
writer try to do so.”Birthright 35