Shiny you should get your money back. "Birth of a Nation " is one of the most famous films of its day and any film historian knows it. I dont know what class you took at like 15 or 16 ...judging by your age. But what I am taking is a college class full of adults ranging for 18 to 40......

The reason the film did influence them is because it suggested racism in the film and showed evil amongst the black man and at the time film was ever more inspirationall and at the time the black man had just ended slavery. So began the questioning and arguing of the black mans worth as a free man. The video showed them as lazy and non productive and evil. This lead to people with feelings they already had to explode into stronger feelings due to slavery just ending and due to the fact that some people wanted slvaery back. People feared the black mans freedom and thus the KKK grew.

The president said

"this is history with thunder" or something of that nature.