aIf other black newspapers denounced Gone With the Wind for its “celluloid lies” and warned, as Los Angeles Sentinel editorialists did, that “Hollywood Goes Hitler One Better,” in Atlanta, the Daily World was beside itself in celebrating what was until then the social event of the century – even though, it announced, “none of the colored actors who are a part of the famous ‘Gone With the Wind’ will participate in the colorful premiere.” Hollywood royalty, including Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh (with her “two colored maids”) and Louis B. Mayer himself, swooped into town for several days of pageantry leading to the whites-only premiere at Loew’s Grand. Reflecting a middle-class excitement at proximity to the fringes of the social swirl, articles referred to the film, set in Atlanta and its environs, as a “gripping story of the Old South” and “Margaret Mitchell’s great story.” They trumpeted the number of chauffeurs, ushers, musicians and laborers finding employment during the festivities, including some who, “[d]ressed as did those carriage drivers and servants of the sixties, presented spectacular pictures on the downtown thoroughfares.” More than 60 singers from the Ebenezer Baptist Church (including a 10-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., singing in the choir directed by his mother) and more than 40 members of the Big Bethel A.M.E. Church sang spirituals dressed in “Antebellum styles” – Ebenezer at the Atlanta Junior League ball on Thursday night, Big Bethel at the premiere on Friday night. “Ebenezer Choir Scores At Gala ‘GWTW’ Ball” and “Big Bethel Choir Thrills Thousands,” the Daily World told readers, noting that the choristers acquitted themselves well and that Margaret Mitchell was particularly impressed. Not to be outdone, some blacks held their own alternative Gone With the Wind-themed socials – sometimes, as at Ebenezer after its choir’s performances, wearing those “Antebellum styles” while recreating the roles of the film’s main characters.9
Despite the jeremiads of the Melvin Tolsons of the black press, such appeasement to the customs of the Old South were not yet gone with the wind. As with Scarlett’s hopes, that change would have to await another day.
1 Farnsworth, Robert M., ed. Caviar and Cabbage: Selected Columns by Melvin B. Tolson from the Washington Tribune, 1937-1944. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1982, p. 214.
2 The Crisis reported that President Wilson’s secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, had assured prominent blacks whose political support he sought for a 1916 reelection bid, that "the President was entirely unaware of the character of the play before it was presented and has at no time expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old acquaintance.” Because the president refused direct requests to clarify whether he endorsed the film, doubt remained about his position. See The Crisis, June 1915, p. 88; and Gallen, Ira. H., ed. D. W. Griffith’s 100th Anniversary The Birth of a Nation. Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress, 2014, chapter 14.
3 Brody, Richard. “The Worst Thing About ‘Birth of a Nation’ is How Good It Is.” New Yorker Web. 1 Feb. 2013.
4 Nelson, Stanley, et.al. The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel (distributor), 2000.
5Everett, Anna. Returning the Gaze: A Genealogy of Black Film Criticism, 1909-1949. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 103-104.
6 Farnsworth, p. 12.
7 Farnsworth, p. 214.
8 Ibid. Cf., the “Watchtower” column penned by Wilkins in the Amsterdam News, Dec. 30, 1939, p. 7. “It is my pleasure to report to my readers that in the lengthy and long-advertised film, ‘Gone With the Wind,’ there is very little (almost nothing) over which the dark brothers and sisters can work up a good ‘mad.’ The authors of the film story have been exceptionally careful to avoid the dialogue in the Mitchell novel which, if transferred to the screen, would have been inflammable material.”
9 See: Los Angeles Sentinel, Jan. 28, 1937, p. 1; and Feb. 9, 1939, p. 1; Atlanta Daily World, Dec. 14-16, 1939, p.1.
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