Gone with the Wind (film) 1978, CBS signed a deal worth $35 million to broadcast the film twenty times over as many years. Turner Entertainment acquired the MGM film library in 1986, but the deal did not include the television rights to "Gone with the Wind", which were still held by CBS. A deal was struck in which the rights were returned to Turner Entertainment and CBS's broadcast rights to "The Wizard of Oz" were extended. It was used to launch two cable channels owned by Turner Broadcasting System: Turner Network Television (1988) and Turner Classic Movies (1994). It debuted on videocassette in March 1985,
Gone with the Wind (novel) "Gone With the Wind", Margaret Mitchell hesitated to blame black 'insolence' during Reconstruction solely on 'mean niggers', of which, she said, there were few even in slavery days." Critics say that Mitchell downplayed the violent role of the Ku Klux Klan and their abuse of freedmen. Author Pat Conroy, in his preface to a later edition of the novel, describes Mitchell's portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as having "the same romanticized role it had in "The Birth of a Nation" and appears to be a benign combination of the Elks Club and a men's equestrian society". Regarding the historical