the attempted rape of Sylvia by Gridlestone. This editing deconstructed the white ideology that lynching was to punish black men for alleged sexual assaults against white women. Micheaux portrayed the more frequent sexual assaults of black women by white men, alluding to the widespread historical practice of white men taking advantage of black women slaves. Other passages were edited to deconstruct white visual traditions and white ideologies. The film also touched on several current social and political events, including the death of Theodore Roosevelt, the contributions of African-American soldiers to the war, and debates in the US Senate over Jim Crow laws and labor peonage in the South. Representation of racism The film portrayed several aspects of contemporary African-American society. Heroes and heroines included Sylvia Landry and Reverend Jacobs, criminals such as Larry, and "lackeys" such as a minister whom Mrs. Stafford supported, who encouraged African Americans to reject suffrage. The critic Ronald J. Green suggests that Bernice Ladd as Mrs. Statton represents a "Lillian Gish figure", referring to her role in The Birth of a Nation. Statton is portrayed as racist and anti-feminist. Green notes that Micheaux intended the links between the films, and cast Ladd in part for her physical resemblance to Gish. Early in Within Our Gates Micheaux uses the character Mrs. Geraldine Stratton, a rich southern white woman, to depict the reality of American life not a world where there are no white people. Mrs. Stratton embodies the essence of southern prejudice; as a result of her fear of black women receiving the right to vote, she opposes women suffrage. With the use of the cinematic techniques, the viewer looks over the shoulder of Mrs. Stratton as she reads a newspaper article entitled "Law Proposed to Stop Negroes". This article explains that the Mississippi senator James K. Vardaman has proposed a bill to negate the Fifteenth Amendment. Vardaman justifies his action by stating: "from the soles of their flat feet to the crown of their head, negroes are undoubtedly inferior beings, therefore, how can we in conscience permit them to vote?" Efrem, a servant to Gridlestone, denounced Mr. Landry as the murderer, although he was not a witness to the crime. Overturning the relationship which Efrem believed he had with whites, a mob lynched him when it failed to find the Landrys. The character of Old Ned justifies the present racial system as God's ordained plan;