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integration, could there be any clearer sign of its immorality?' 4 Yet, if any area of Americahad the lowest number of communists, it was the South. Almost every southern state hadestablished its own investigating committee after the 1950 McCarran Act. 5Underpinning southern reaction was the whole issue of race and southern identity. IfBrown stood for the equal treatment of all citizens then the justification of whitesupremacy was gone. Civil Rights for African Americans threatened to end the Lost Causemyth - the South's heritage, memory and loyalty to its traditions. 6 The fears and myths ofmiscegenation were resurrected to create emotional support against integration. White menhad to defend the 'inviolability' of the southern white woman as the Black Monday tractproclaimed. 7 It was The Birth of a Nation (Birth) again, as an editorial in the Jackson DailyNews pointed out: 'White and Negro children in the same school will lead tomiscegenation. Miscegenation leads to mixed marriages and mixed marriages lead tomongrelization of the human race.' 8 In 1955, twenty-nine states had statutes forbiddingblacks and whites to marry. 9 Eisenhower was reported to have said, that opponents ofintegration 'are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see their sweet little girlsare not required to sit in schools alongside some big black bucks.' However if Southernerswere forced to see African Americans as people then their whole way of life and Southernidentity would have to change. 10 If Hollywood wanted to continue producing Civil Warfilms it would have to take note of the political climate in the South.Hollywood, too, had been having its own battle over freedom. In 1952 the Supreme Courtgranted films the protection of the First Amendment - freedom of speech - and in 1953 TheMoon is Blue was released without the PCA seal, but became a box office success. Afterthe more liberal Geoffrey Shurlock replaced Joseph Breen the Production Code wascompletely revised. Miscegenation was no longer a taboo subject - the only ones thatremained were those concerning nudity, sexual perversion and venereal disease. 11 Withthese liberalisations coming at the same time as the Brown judgement Hollywood was freeto explore the issues - even in Civil War films.Hollywood had long been interested in miscegenation and inter-racial romance, generallybetween whites and Native Americans or Spanish Americans, but, after Birth, had avoided86