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Woodrow Wilson


  • Wilson's presidency saw the first movie ever screened in the White House, The Birth of a Nation, a propaganda film which depicts the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.
  • Wilson's administration conducted a series of raids known as the Palmer Raids intended to suppress and arrest suspected anarchists and communists. The raids disproportionately targetted Jewish and Italian immigrants.
  • Signed the Sedition and Espionage acts, which were used to prosecute opponents to the US entry into WW1.
  • Used his power to block the League of Nations from including a declaration of racial equality in its charter.
  • His cabinet was largely composed of unapologetic segregationists and white supremacists. Wilson allowed his cabinet secretaries to segregate their departments.
  • Wrote a history textbook that praised the Ku Klux Klan. A quote from this book was used in The Birth of a Nation,

    "The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation.....until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the southern country."