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This really all depends on what you mean by racism. Are you talking just African-American? Do you want to throw in Latino? Native American? Asian? How about gender? Or sexual orientation? I'm guessing you're meaning African-American, so I'll go there.
One of the first well known films to deal with racism was actually horribly racist; Birth of a Nation. From a film perspective, it changed how movies were made: Panning shots, the iris, night photography. Pretty much any film technique used today owes it's look to this film. As Roger Ebert stated, it's painful and sickening to re-watch the film, but it did so much for how films are presented today, it has to be included in the pantheon of great films.
The Plot: After reconstruction, black soldiers ride into the south and stuff ballot boxes, forcing white men into submission, and demanding mixed marriages. This leads to a black man trying to force a white woman to marry him which leads to her suicide. The Ku Klux Klan forms to get revenge, blacks are lynched, and white power triumphantly returns to the south.
But racially, it changed America in the worst way: While there was overwhelming backlash against the film from most audiences, the film revitalized the Klan. Before the film, the Klan had mostly disappeared from the South. Some federal laws (which were later found unconstitutional) banned the Klan outright. Others found no need for the Klan because black suppression in the South through Jim Crow had already been established.
But the mythology that the movie created gave new vigor and interest in the Klan. Old members began to organize again, refining their methods. The white sheets that we know today were taken directly from the film. Birth of a Nation became a rallying cry for hatred, a reminder to the South about how much the North tried (and were still trying) to take over their way of life. The Klan would have disappeared if it wasn't for Birth of the Nation's glorification of it.
So there's your first racial film that actually changed the world. Would you like more?
Last edited by Godot18; 06-09-13 at 08:16 PM.
Reason: Clarification