sentences:  Often regarded in the context of D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation", which had appeared five years earlier, Micheaux's project has been considered by critics as a response to Griffith.The film's portrayal of lynching shows "what Blacks knew and Northern Whites refused to believe", turning the "accusation of 'primitivism'... back onto White Southern culture".Also in this period was the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, in which white mobs killed numerous blacks, and burned residential districts, leaving thousands of blacks homeless.