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  • From Thought Clouds
  • A. Van Jordan (bio)

FADE IN:

INT—Newsreel of D.W. GRIFFITH in his library at home after the release of his biggest financial success, Birth of a Nation. 1915.

D.W. Griffith

This story surprises even me: Birth of a Nation, arrives forged from a love story, and ignites controversy across the country. Between a man and a woman bred in southern soil, who could eclipse its importance with the cloud of race hovering over their destiny, with the world watching Elsie (Lillian Gish) fall into Ben’s, (Henry Walthall’s) on-screen kiss? The public—largely in the north, it seems—sets sanctity aboil. I want the light of the south to shine across a unified nation, shine to awaken the magnolias and cypresses in the chests of men who believe in the virtues of womanhood. This is in defense of the couple with a thousand eyes beating down upon them: Elsie and Ben, entwined as the south, under Klieg lights, burning with survival, attempts to end this feud from beneath flash powder and smoke. Ben wants to protect his lover without losing his brother in the North. Elsie wants the world to stop fighting and allow her to marry. They, sepia toned and sure-footed, take on a world full of harsh colors. They take on the mantle of manners representing the country from which they’re bred. The bougainvillea, the kudzu and the cotton, embroils the North and the South, distends the bond till it bursts into flame. Sometimes the link comes so close, sometimes it’s so beautiful in the exchange, neither believes the other deserves the union. When the passion implodes, we call it Civil War. The soldier on his journey goes back and forth, advancing and retreating, covering ground for brother and sister; no one knows who’s the enemy and, after a while, no one cares but the fallen bodies carpeting the field. All seems found just as all seems lost, till both sides push their passion to a point of rest. As he falls, he sees her—in a photograph or a memory or a dream of regret—all while a hint of sweat, just a touch slides down her breast, gently wiped away by some devil’s finger, pointing north.

CUT TO: EXT—FLASHBACK—Porch of home in Gregory, SD, of OSCAR MICHEAUX, farmer and Negro novelist. He contemplates his affection for and relationship with his Scottish neighbor’s daughter, SARAH. 1908. [End Page 42]

Mixed Couple, 1908

Oscar to Sarah

Once I glanced at—I admit, a second too long—a hint of sweat, just a touch on your breast—once I bought the land from your father, once he named the fairest price offered to me from anyone in the county, and once it became clear that he respected me as a man should respect other men—like your reflection in water, which you admire but prefer not to disturb—I knew the spirit of your house embraced me like family. I changed. Talking to you now sends me to think of our night in shadow, first of many to follow, on which I came ‘round back of your house under your window, hiding from your father’s gaze, he doesn’t know—at least I don’t think he does, but his eyes—and he would not mind, really, but… rest that thought: I only remember his eyes. His eyes of Atlantic Ocean and onyx stone, of forgiveness and regret. His stares assure that folks down the road would nest not like robins but like buzzards. I see them daily here in Gregory, SD, in Kansas City, MO, in Greensboro, NC, through the south and the north: men on every corner to slit our throats, the two regions are more united than Griffith would lead us to believe, this journey of us--if lucky: the world builds gallows, after all—waiting for a world in which we’re free enough to hold each other; but, for now, its worse for mixed couples, a true test of the country’s union and reconstruction, of our fearful dream. The true sleep of pain, the true nightmare...

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