When W. H. Whaley approached the front of the crowd at Faneuil Hall, nearly 1,500 people—both Black and white—cheered him on.¹ Not a lot united Boston across color lines in 1915, but the events at the Tremont Theater that past Saturday rallied Black people and poor white people alike. Whaley, a Black lawyer originally from New York, was poised to be a highlight of the day. Then again, having a celebrity standing beside you always helps—especially when that man is William Trotter.

"My friends," Whaley began, placing his hand on Trotter's shoulder, "This is Mr. William Munroe Trotter, who is the hero of the evening. He has been arrested, simply because he sought his rights guaranteed under the constitution of the United States. He sought to buy a ticket to the theater across the way, but he was refused because—well, you know why."² Trotter had the audacity to be Black and angry. And as secretary of the National Equal Rights League and editor of The Guardian, one of the biggest and most radical Black newspapers in the U.S., he had the outlet to express his justified rage.

The Tremont Theater had planned to screen The Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith's blockbuster racist film that would go on to inspire a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Since the film premiered that past February, tens of thousands of Black Americans in over sixty cities, including Boston, had protested the film.

Resistance to the story itself wasn’t new.³ What was new was the medium. Trotter and his contemporaries recognized that film had an unprecedented power to spread propaganda and racist stereotypes. So when President Woodrow Wilson screened The Birth of a Nation—the first film to be played in the White House—the Black community stood outraged and ready to act.

However, the popularity and momentum of the film continued. Eyes fell on Boston, the so-called “birthplace of liberty,” to see what the fate of The Birth of a Nation would be. The local NAACP, then a largely white, politically moderate organization, met with Boston Mayor James Curley to try to get the film banned under existing censorship laws. Trotter went along to these meeting in support, but he did not believe that solely going through a racist legal system would solve the problem.⁴ And when Mayor Curley refused to legally sanction the film, Trotter was unphased. “The policy of compromise has failed. The policy of agitation and resistance deserves trial,” he stated.⁵

Despite the strong opposition, the Tremont Theater pushed forward with the Saturday, April 17 screening. The theater hung Confederate flags next to glamorized posters of Klansmen to advertise the film.⁶ (Coincidentally, theater manager John Schoeffel's late wife, Agnes Booth, was the former sister-in-law of John Wilkes Booth).⁷ Trotter claimed to not have organized any action that day. Instead, he wanted to see if the Mayor had kept up his end of the bargain to remove the film’s most objectionable material.⁸ Whether local community members planned a demonstration or not, someone tipped off the theater that “a certain gang of colored men [planned] to raid the theater."⁹ Hundreds of police officers in uniform and plain clothes were preemptively called to the theater.¹⁰

Tensions continued to rise. The theater turned away all Black patrons, claiming that the show was sold out. Around 7:30 pm, Trotter entered the theater lobby with dozens of supporters.¹¹ Not easily deterred, Trotter approached the ticket booth. "I had a half dollar in my hand and was trying to buy a ticket,” he recounted. ”The ticket sellers behind the window kept saying there were no tickets for sale. So I said, ’But you have no sign out to that effect, neither here nor at the outer door, and I demand my rights.'"¹² 

Even when a police sergeant threatened to arrest Trotter for inciting a riot, he returned to the line once more.¹³ Then, a white man strolled up to the counter and successfully purchased three seats. Understandably outraged, Trotter charged theater management with racial discrimination.

The next events unfolded quickly. A white man—a police officer in plain clothing—walked up to Trotter and punched him squarely in the jaw. Several Black people rushed to Trotter's defense. Fighting broke out between mostly Black theatergoers and white cops. Police arrested Trotter for disorderly conduct. Then "a burley sergeant and a patrolman literally dragged him to the Lagrange-street station...Trotter protested that he would go along willingly if the police would not hurt his wrists."¹⁴ Aaron William Puller, another local Black activist and the minister of the People’s Baptist Church, tried to calm the situation down. Instead, police arrested him, too. They dragged him at least 15 blocks while in a chokehold. By the end of the night, the police had arrested a total of 11 people, 10 of them Black.¹⁵ As the Springfield Union newspaper published, ”Not since antebellum days has Boston been so stirred up over ’The Negro Question.’”¹⁶

The next day at Faneuil Hall where Whaley had spoken, Trotter also took the stage. He pointed out the irony that they stood close to the monument to Crispus Attucks, the Afro-Indigenous sailor who was the first to die in the American Revolution. Trotter, never one to bite his tongue, described The Birth of a Nation as "a rebel play, an incentive to great racial hatred here in Boston... If there is any lynching here in Boston, Mayor Curley will be responsible."¹⁷

Many Bostonians were scandalized that Jim Crow-style segregation could happen in the North in the hub of the anti-slavery movement. While most speakers were Black, even white, working-class leftists like United Irish League leader Michael J. Jordan encouraged the crowd to place the events "in the context of global injustice and tyranny."¹⁸ Trotter didn’t want to let the momentum of the speeches go to waste. Two days later, Trotter led a march of over 2,000 people to the State House where Governor David Walsh, the deputy chief of the state police, and others met to discuss the film.¹⁹ Outside, the crowd sang ”gospel hymns...with fervor.”²⁰ The action led to the creation of a censorship board responsible for reviewing the film.²¹ On April 25, a mass meeting of Black community members occurred at the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury. There, Trotter introduced a resolution condemning Boston police action at the Tremont Theater. Lawyer Joshua Crawford said, "We are not going to stop. [The film] has got to go or they will have to put us in jail."²² Dr. Alice Woodby McKane stated, "If we can't get rid of it by fair means, it will be by foul means. If there are men here afraid to die, there are women who are not afraid. This play would not be tolerated if it affected any other race or people."²³

Despite the strength of the movement he spearheaded, there were mixed results for Trotter. Municipal Judge Brackett found that the theater had "used unfair discrimination between white and colored applicants for tickets," a legal victory for Trotter and crew.²⁴ But the same judge also fined Trotter $20 for disturbing the peace. The judge claimed that "Mr. Trotter's conduct was not what it should have been considering his influence with his people, however. If his people were wronged they should have sought redress later in the Legislature or in the courts."²⁵ As Trotter had predicted, the legal system proved unfair for Black citizens and wanted to relegate Trotter to “appropriate” standards of action. Eventually, the censorship board allowed the Tremont Theater to continue screening the film after the Mayor’s office barred Trotter and other activists from entering the meeting.²⁶

Even though protests against the film were ultimately unsuccessful, this struggle would become the first mass Black protest movement of the century. The combination of legal pressure, direct action, and civil disobedience that Trotter spearheaded paved the way for larger civil rights protests in the decades to come. As The Guardian’s motto proclaimed, Trotter encouraged generations of Black activists to fight “For every right, with all thy might.”

Learn More

Want help researching this story or others like it? Email us at ask@bpl.org for help! You can also check out our collections of The Guardian newspaper, other Massachusetts newspapers, the George W. Forbes Papers, and books and documentaries like these:

Black Radical

Birth Of A Movement

Apocalyptic Rhetoric and the Black Protest Movement

The Birth of A Nation

White Robes, Silver Screens

The Other Black Bostonians

The Guardian of Boston: William Monroe Trotter

References

^{1 “Orators on the Common,” Springfield Republican, April 19, 1915, 3.
2 Ibid.
3 "PROTEST DRAWN UP AGAINST CLANSMAN: Rev. A. L. Weatherly Causes Commotion by Trying to Defend Dixon, While Chamberlain is for ‘Black Man’s Party,’” Worcester Telegram, December 5th, 1906, 1. 
4 Kerri K. Greenidge, Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 210-211.
5 Susan Gray and Bestor Cram, Birth of a Movement, PBS, 2017, (00:43:21).
6 Kerri K. Greenidge, Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 211.
7 “Boston’s Show Censorship: Denunciation of the Present Law: The Dixon Moving Pictures and the Negroes.” Springfield Weekly Republican, April 22, 1915, 4.
8 “150 Police Guard ‘Birth of a Nation,’: Mr. Trotter’s Story,” The Sunday Herald, April 18, 1915, 9.
9 “Theater’s Statement,” Springfield Republican, April 19, 1915, 3.
10 ”NEGROES ARRESTED: Riot at Boston Theater,” Springfield Republican, April 18, 1915, 1.
11 "150 Police Guard ’Birth of a Nation’: Trouble Starts Early,” The Sunday Herald, April 18, 1915, 9.
12 Ibid.
13 ”Denies Plans Made,” Springfield Republican, April 19, 1915, 3. 
14 “NEGROES ARRESTED: Riot at Boston Theater,“ Springfield Republican, Apr 18, 1915, 1.
15  Kerri K. Greenidge, Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 212.
16 ”Boston Riot Over Film Production,” The Springfield Union, April 18, 1915, 1. 
17 ” BIRTH OF NATION" CAUSES NEAR-RIOT: Alleged Plot to Destroy Film Results In Wild Scenes and 11 Arrests. Crowds Keep 260 Policemen Busy--Thousands Watch the Row From Street. Rev Dr Puller, W. M. Trotter And One White Man Among Those in Custody. Clash Comes When Ticket Sale Ends. Outbreak Is Culmination of Long Agitation Over Play,” Boston Daily Globe, April 18, 1915, 1.
18 Kerri K. Greenidge, Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 213.
19 ”GOVERNOR ACTS ON FILM PROTEST: Conference at State House May Lead to Ban on Photoplay,” The Springfield Union, April 20, 1915, 3.
20 Ibid.
21 ”CENSORS ’PASS’ FILM PLAY THAT STIRRED CITY: New Board Refuses to Revoke or Suspend License of Tremont Theater, Where ’The Birth of a Nation’ Is Produced—Unanimous Decision of Official Critics,” The Boston Herald, June 3, 1915, 1.
22 "NEGRO WOMEN OFFER TO DIE TO STOP FILM: Organize Vigilance Committee, Hiss Mayor's Name and Demand His Recall," The Boston Herald, April 26, 1915, 12.
23 Ibid.
24 ”TROTTER FINED $20: Colored Editor Found Guilty of Assaulting Officer,” Springfield Daily News, May 5, 1915, 14. 
25 Ibid.
26 ”CENSORS ’PASS’ FILM PLAY THAT STIRRED CITY: New Board Refuses to Revoke or Suspend License of Tremont Theater, Where ’The Birth of a Nation’ Is Produced—Unanimous Decision of Official Critics,” The Boston Herald, June 3, 1915, 1.}