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The Ledger
On this day

February 8th

2 events recorded on The Ledger.

  1. 1915
    The Record

    The Birth of a Nation released

    D.W. Griffith's three-hour film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles, romanticizing the Ku Klux Klan and depicting Black Reconstruction legislators as predators played by white actors in blackface. President Woodrow Wilson screens it at the White House; Klan membership passes four million within a decade.

  2. 1925
    The Record

    Marcus Garvey imprisoned at Atlanta Penitentiary

    Jamaica-born Marcus Mosiah Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and publisher of Negro World, enters the federal penitentiary in Atlanta to serve a five-year sentence for mail fraud tied to Black Star Line stock. President Calvin Coolidge commutes the sentence in 1927 and orders Garvey deported.

Timeline data: 159 events across The Ledger. See the full 400-year timeline →