The Birth of a Nation merely reinforced 75 years of daily theatre propaganda, vaudeville, minstrel portrayal of African Americans as stupid, lazy and dishonest.
Reading Dixon's bio, he is more than a Lonesome Rhodes preacher, almost an eternal student in his many career changes, a polished Lonesome Rhodes none the less. What he ran into in Philly was what I call the "quiet wave" of black middle class emigration from the South following Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 that set various Jim Crows laws in the South into Stone with no hope for improvement down there.
A growing black middle class in the South were more than glad to take factory jobs in North Philly around Reading R.R. transportation hubs like Columbia Station and the rapid white flight away from these areas so to speak.
Cohocksink Presbyterian Church and its racist flight away from the area in 1915 after decades of a losing white congregation base. Cohocksink Presbyterian's institutional racism and its demand for the mother church not to resell the surrendered congregation building to a "colored" congregation as proof of rapidly changing demographics back then.
In reaction to Dixon's play in Philly, the various social and economic enclaves of the African American communities in Philly felt confident enough to challenge The Clansman and other similar public displays of racism.
That the film Birth of a Nation film found a friend and a fad in many rural and urban areas where jobs perceived to be taken by blacks was an odious excuse to promote hate.
That the north was not immune to lynchings of racial minorities as in the 1911 immolation death of minority Zach Walker in Coatsville, Pa..
https://phillyandstuff.blogspot.com/2016/09/rev-george-chalmers-richmond-attacks_9.html
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