Different subgroups in society have diverse motives for remembering or forgetting important events in history. In American history, slavery has had a deep and enduring bad effect on everything that came afterward. There have been attempts to forget or remember this chapter in the national narrative related to the intentions of subcultural groups in the present. The treatment of slavery in American movies has been a powerful factor in these attempts. Recent movies have returned to a focus on slavery at the same time that national opinion has turned away from African American issues and sympathies. The recent movie "The Birth of a Nation" exemplifies the new emphasis on slavery in the movies and the lack of concern for it in public discourse.