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University Of Miami Bans "Dixie"
1968
No more whistling "Dixie" for University of Miami students as the school becomes the first university to ban the controversial Confederate anthem from being played at public events.
In a letter to the student body, President Henry King Stanford explains his reasons for banning the traditional tune, which first rose to prominence in blackface minstrel shows before becoming an anthem for the Confederacy during the American Civil War and a popular theme at modern sporting events. With lyrics wistfully recalling the bygone days "in the land of cotton," while, protesters point out, stereotyping the slaves who picked that very cotton, the song attracts controversy.
As the Civil Rights movement gained traction throughout the '50s and '60s, African Americans likened their reaction to confronting symbols of the Old South like the Confederate flag and "Dixie" to the Jews encountering Nazi swastikas: a painful reminder of a time of bondage and prejudice.
Stanford writes, "It is not honorable to force upon a minority group the symbols of the Confederacy which, rightly or wrongly, have become so distasteful to them, symbols which are associated in their minds with slavery, discrimination, and the degradation of human personality, all conditions that are at complete variance with that part of my Southern heritage which I prize so highly."
Despite other schools (including Clemson University and the University of Georgia) following Miami's lead, Confederate heritage groups and several Southern schools retain "Dixie" as a fight song that they insist represents heritage, not hate - an argument that rages well into the 21st century. In the ensuing decades, artists re-envision the song's message by removing stereotypical black dialect and setting the tune against songs that detail black hardship, such as jazz singer Rene Marie mixing it with "Strange Fruit," Billie Holiday's haunting song about lynching. Just a few year after the ban, Mickey Newbury's "An American Trilogy," made popular by Elvis Presley, combines "Dixie" with the Union anthem "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the spiritual-turned-protest song "All My Trials."
As the Civil Rights movement gained traction throughout the '50s and '60s, African Americans likened their reaction to confronting symbols of the Old South like the Confederate flag and "Dixie" to the Jews encountering Nazi swastikas: a painful reminder of a time of bondage and prejudice.
Stanford writes, "It is not honorable to force upon a minority group the symbols of the Confederacy which, rightly or wrongly, have become so distasteful to them, symbols which are associated in their minds with slavery, discrimination, and the degradation of human personality, all conditions that are at complete variance with that part of my Southern heritage which I prize so highly."
Despite other schools (including Clemson University and the University of Georgia) following Miami's lead, Confederate heritage groups and several Southern schools retain "Dixie" as a fight song that they insist represents heritage, not hate - an argument that rages well into the 21st century. In the ensuing decades, artists re-envision the song's message by removing stereotypical black dialect and setting the tune against songs that detail black hardship, such as jazz singer Rene Marie mixing it with "Strange Fruit," Billie Holiday's haunting song about lynching. Just a few year after the ban, Mickey Newbury's "An American Trilogy," made popular by Elvis Presley, combines "Dixie" with the Union anthem "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the spiritual-turned-protest song "All My Trials."
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