Charles Reagan Wilson Presentation: The Multicultural South, JCP Summer Institute, 1991 July 15
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| Charles Reagan Wilson | Mississippi, which is in the southern part of the state, but it's by a, a White fiddler who was from the Hill country. Um, it's called Cold Frosty Morning. And it was recorded in 1939 when this fellow was 80 years old. | 0:02 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (plays recording of fiddle music) | 0:18 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (speaking over recording) This really reflects the, the, the sort of raw vernacular culture. It's not very commercial. This is recorded as part of the, a Mississippi Music Project by the WPA, back in the thirties. And this is someone who was not commercial at all, just played in his local sort of community. And all obviously reflect, reflects the British musical tradition in terms of its style, of use of instrumentation. The style that became the basis really of, of White country music. | 0:34 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (stops playing recording) | 1:06 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And this next song (plays Roy Acuff recording) is by Roy Acuff, of course, is one of the founders of the country music industry. He's from the, the Appalachian Mountains. And this song is called The Great Speckled Bird. And it's a religious song that became a kind of anthem for many Pentecostal groups, Black and White. | 1:06 |
| Roy Acuff (recording) | (singing and playing Dobro guitar) What a beautiful thought I am thinking, concerning the great speckled bird. Remember her name is recorded on the pages of God's holy word. | 1:25 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (speaking over the recording) Instrument is the Dobro. This song is based on the ninth verse 12th chapter of Jeremiah, which says, my heritage is unto me as a speckled bird. The birds round about are against her, and the bird has been symbol of the Christian Church, besieged by other birds, in effect, in the metaphor. | 1:53 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (plays blues recording) | 2:16 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | We're now in the, in the delta with the blues, with Robert Johnson called Kind-hearted Woman, | 2:38 |
| Robert Johnson (recording) | (singing and playing guitar) I got a kindhearted woman, do anything in this world for me. | 2:44 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This is 1935. | 2:52 |
| Robert Johnson (recording) | I got a kindhearted woman, do anything in this world for me. But these evil-hearted women, man, they will not let me be. | 3:11 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Much of the blues, of course, is about, about male-female relationships. | 3:15 |
| Robert Johnson (recording) | I love my baby, my baby don't love me. I love my baby, my baby don't love me. But I really love that woman, can't stand to leave her be. | 3:19 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (plays recording of Bessie Smith) | 3:48 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Often the blues that deals with a lot of Black experience, Black community in the South. | 3:48 |
| Bessie Smith (recording) | (singing and playing piano) When it rained five days and the sky turned dark as night. | 3:54 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This is Bessie Smith's song called Backwater Blues about flood, Mississippi flood. The song was recorded after the '27 flood. | 3:54 |
| Bessie Smith (recording) | When it rained five days and the sky turned dark as night. | 4:08 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This is more sophisticated blues than Robert Johnson's. | 4:08 |
| Bessie Smith (recording) | Then trouble's takin' place in the lowlands at night. | 4:12 |
| Bessie Smith (recording) | I woke up this mornin', can't even get out of my door. | 4:27 |
| Bessie Smith (recording) | There's enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she wanna go. | 4:28 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (stops Bessie Smith recording) (plays Casey Bill Weldon recording) This is called the WPA Blues, another 30s song from a fellow named Casey Bill Weldon. | 4:47 |
| Casey Bill Weldon (recording) | (singing with piano and guitar) Everybody's workin' in this town, and it's worried me night and day. Everybody's workin' in this town, and it's worried me night and day. If that mean workin' too, had to work for the W.P.A. Well, well, the landlord come this mornin'. And he knocked on my door. He asked me if I was goin' to pay my rent no more. He said, "You have to move if you can't pay." And then he turned and he walked slowly away. So, I have to try find me some other place to stay. | 4:53 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (talking over Casey Bill Weldon recording) Although the blues is often seen as a very individualistic art form, and it is, but it also deals with social issues often, (starts playing Buckle White recording) and of course with songs like that, you see many of the oppressive features of southern culture. | 5:47 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This is a good example. It's a song by Buckle White called Parchman Farm Blues. | 6:02 |
| Buckle White (recording) | (singing with percussion instruments) Judge give me life this mornin'. Down on Parchman farm. Judge give me life this mornin'. Down on Parchman farmI wouldn't hate it so bad. But I left my wife in mourn. | 6:20 |
| Buckle White (recording) | Oh, goodbye wife. All you have done gone. Oh, goodbye wife. All you have done gone. But I hope some day. You will hear my lonesome song. | 6:20 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (starts playing Jack Kelly recording) This song is by Jack Killing. It's called Joe Louis Special. Example of the blues documenting heroes. | 7:08 |
| Jack Kelly (recording) | (fiddle and singing) If you give Joe what he want, that will be a big fat steak. If you give Joe what he wants, that will be a big fat steak. And he will hit you so hard, 'til you will want to jump in the lake. | 7:14 |
| Jack Kelly (recording) | Now, steak and gravy, that's his favorite dish. Well, steak and gravy, that is his favorite dish. Well, he'll draw back, make you want to jump in the lake. | 7:27 |
| Jack Kelly (recording) | Now, Joe ain't too lean, and ain't too fat, that wicked left he got, says, John Henry will tell you that. Now, Joe ain't too lean, and he ain't too fat. Now, that wicked left he's got, John Henry will even tell you that. | 7:27 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (stops Jack Kelly recording) | 8:35 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Now, this next song is an example of the blues reaching over into White culture in effect, something we talked about earlier. Um, and this is by Jimmie Rodgers, the father of country music as he's called, who is from Meridian, Mississippi. And he learned blues from, from Blacks working on the railroad where he worked. | 8:35 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And also Jimmie Rodgers was very much the product of a kind of southern version of American popular culture in the early 20th century of traveling shows, a southern version of vaudeville of listening to the radio and the influence of radio in the 1920s was enormous in the South. | 9:01 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This was a very important culturally when, when this kind of isolation and provincialism I was talking about begins to be overcome, because the radio represents the outside world. So Jimmie Rodgers is, is in many ways a kind of although he draws on the rural countryside and traditional southern vernacular folk cultures, he also is drawing from a lot of popular American popular style as well. | 9:22 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | He often dresses very nattily, you know, and looks very urban in, in his style and image, but his music is very much southern White folk music and, and Black with Black influences. Now it's identifiably White music in terms of its style, I think, but in in other ways. It, it has a blues influence in terms of the arrangement, the lyrics, et cetera. | 9:46 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | His distinctive style was the yodel, the yodel, the blues yodel. This is called the Blue Yodel Number 1. And it was recorded in 1928. And the next song is also an example of the same sort of crossover in this case by Hank Williams singing Lovesick Blues. | 10:08 |
| Jimmie Rodgers (recording) | (singing with guitar) T for Texas, T for Tennessee. T for Texas, T for Tennessee. T for Thelma, that gal that made a wreck out of me. | 11:00 |
| Jimmie Rodgers (recording) | (yodeling) | 11:00 |
| Jimmie Rodgers (recording) | If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall, oh Lord. If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall. 'Cause I can get more women than a passenger train can haul. | 11:00 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (audience laughs) (stops recording) | 11:25 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Got the blues man's attitude toward women. No doubt about it. (starts Hank Williams recording) | 11:25 |
| Hank Williams (recording) | I got a feelin' called the blues, oh, Lord. Since my baby said goodbye. Lord, I don't know what I'll do. All I do is sit and sigh, oh, Lord. | 11:28 |
| Hank Williams (recording) | That last long day she said goodbye. Well Lord I thought I would cry. | 11:28 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (talking over recording) Hank Williams is a good example of that sort of crossover. He grew up in the, in the Alabama Black Belt and went to Montgomery, Alabama— | 11:32 |
| Hank Williams (recording) | She'll do me, she'll do you, she's got that kind of lovin'. Lord, I love to hear her when she calls me sweet daddy— | 12:01 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (talking over recording) —learned how to play the guitar from a Black person, in Montgomery, still an identifiable White style. | 12:01 |
| Hank Williams (recording) | Such a beautiful dream | 12:10 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (talking over recording) And of course, his, his voice is so country, | 12:11 |
| Hank Williams (recording) | I hate to think it all over, I've lost my heart it seems | 12:13 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (talking over recording) You know, I play this for my students and both the young Blacks and Whites just don't like this at all. This is not something they identify with, the young, younger generations of Southerners. | 12:14 |
| Hank Williams (recording) | I've grown so used to you somehow. Lord, I'm nobody's sugar daddy now. And I'm lonesome, I got the lovesick blues. | 12:26 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (stops recording) Now this next song is a religious song, and I have two versions of it. It's Take My Hand, Precious Lord. And it was written by a Black songwriter named Thomas Dorsey of Georgia, who grew up, he was the son of a Baptist minister, but he was a blues singer. | 12:38 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And then he had this religious conversion and he decided to devote his life to the Lord. And he started writing religious songs, and he wrote all sorts of religious songs, gospel songs that have become a, a part of evangelical tradition. | 12:57 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And usually people don't even know where they came from with a lot of these songs. He wrote a tremendous number of, number of these including some of the most famous, like Precious Lord. | 13:13 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This first version is in effect in the White Style. It's by 1950s country music performer named Red Foley. And the second one is by Al Green, now the Reverend Al Green, of course, who, who is in Memphis. And you can you can see that you can see the difference. Yes. | 13:21 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This is also, this first one's a very fifties country style. It's not at all twangy. | 13:42 |
| Red Foley (recording) | (singing and guitar with background singers)Precious Lord, take my hand, | 13:48 |
| Red Foley (recording) | Lead me on, let me stand, | 13:48 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Lot of sort of that echo effect. | 13:52 |
| Red Foley (recording) | I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. | 13:56 |
| Red Foley (recording) | Through the storm, through the night, | 13:56 |
| Red Foley (recording) | Lead me on to the light | 13:56 |
| Red Foley (recording) | Take my hand, precious Lord, Lead me home. | 13:56 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (stops Red Foley recording) (starts Al Green recording) | 13:56 |
| Al Green (recording) | (brass band and guitar and singing with choir) Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, | 14:29 |
| Al Green (recording) | Let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. | 14:29 |
| Al Green (recording) | Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on to the light. | 14:29 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | (speaking over recording) You go to Memphis, you can go see Al Green preach and perform. He may ask you to stand up and testify, but— | 14:56 |
| Al Green (recording) | Take my hand, precious Lord, Lead me home. | 15:11 |
| Al Green (recording) | When my way grows drear, Precious Lord, linger near, | 15:11 |
| Al Green (recording) | When my life is almost gone, | 15:11 |
| Al Green (recording) | Tell me that you'll hear my cry, hear my call, Hold my hand lest I fall: | 15:11 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | This, yes. | 15:38 |
| Speaker 8 | I remember when I grew up, it used to be standard to hear term Country and Western. They, I mean, you sell every here, you know, in, in, in that same kind of language stuff, to the country, or I don't know what happened to the Western or— | 15:44 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Western was lost. Yes. (laughs) | 16:00 |
| Speaker 8 | I'm wondering about, you know, I mean, I remember when I watched Gene Autry and all that's all the Western— Is that something that's, do you consider Gene Auntry country and western or country singer or what? I mean, what, what, what's— | 16:03 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | That's, that's interesting, you know, because the country, west country music is a, a good sort of, or can tell us some things about yeoman plain folk culture in the 20th century. You know, what, his historians tend to talk about the yeoman culture in terms of the 19th century and in terms of of how they in a sense lost out in economic competition and gradually lost land. | 16:20 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And more and more White yeomen became sharecroppers after the Civil War. And, and then you lose sight of them until the 20th century. And, and you don't talk about them in in those same ways anymore. But, but but country music is a kind of way to document their life. | 16:44 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Uh, and I, the Western image I think came from, came in the thirties and, and it was partly the movies, you know, it was, it was people like Gene Autry and Tex Ritter who were southern born and grew up listening to country music, but became actors and in Western movies. | 16:59 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And they sort of combined the two. And that image once it became fixed in the movies that influenced, I think, especially Southern Watch, you know, a lot of the, when country music first started as a industry in the 1920s and thirties when people started first recording and commercializing selling records, radios, all this the image was very mountain backward folks, the hillbilly image. | 17:18 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Grand Ole Opry, for example, they're these wonderful examples, amazing examples of how the country music industry, in order to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, you had to look a certain way and act a certain way. And groups, I have photographs of groups that started out as country singers wearing suits and ties, and in order to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, they had to address in overalls and, and corn cob pipes and all this to project that image. | 17:44 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, and and so the hillbilly image, that sort of mountain rural image was dominant, but then with the movies, the western image became the rage, and they began moving away from that sort of country image. | 18:11 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And, and so you had these amazing suits, you know, of, of rhinestones and, and all of this and, and the boots and the boots and the cowboy hats and why that appeals so much to yeoman White folk culture. I'm, I'm not exactly sure, except it was a very romantic image. I mean, it evokes the cowboy. That's always been a very strong cultural image in America in general. Um, but ever since then, that's, that's been a very strong influence on country music, even though they don't call it country in Western anymore. | 18:26 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | A lot of the performers still have that kind of visual image and, and sing about the west, you know, sing about being a cowboy, Willie Nelson, that kind of stuff. Um, and so that western image has always appealed to, to southern White folk culture, I think. And I think it, even though the name country music industry is a multimillion dollar industry, that's, that's no longer a good barometer of the folk culture anymore, I think. Mm-hmm. | 18:55 |
| Speaker 8 | Does it have anything to do with that, that real close connection between southern Whites and the West? I mean, in terms of, you know, you read about how the, the Western dominated by southern Whites. | 19:23 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | I, I think it probably does. I think that, that there's, that al that long tradition of, of Southerners moving west, you know, and into the frontier. Um, and, and it's always been the kind of escape, it was always the kind of escape hatch for dissatisfied poorer southerners, southern Whites. Um, and I think it still has something of that mystique. Um, I think you're right. | 19:37 |
| Speaker 9 | Well, the thing that we don't remember is that part of being the south, we were part of a bigger culture, but also for White southern men, it was still an area of rugged, or with the rugged individualists was appreciated. And there was no one person more rugged and more individual than the cowboy, cow person, (laughter) | 20:00 |
| Speaker 9 | Who would, who would ride into this very bad situation between the Savage Indians of the plains. And they would clean up every, all the bad guys and the Indians and make that area safe for White women and White children. | 20:29 |
| Speaker 9 | And then he had other conquerors things to do, so he would ride off to the sunset with his faithful and noble horse and to be seen next week. And it's something very romantic about that. Because that had been done in the South for the last already, but the area was wide open for the American West. | 20:43 |
| Speaker 11 | You just described the Ninth Cowboy. | 20:59 |
| Speaker 9 | I know, but I'm saying I know what happened in actuality, but I know once he, he's right, once they hit that, say, law from Hollywood, whether it's the ninth Calvary, the 10th Calvary, doesn't matter. Um, it's forever White and it's White. | 21:02 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Yeah. | 21:13 |
| Speaker 12 | Yeah. There's a dissertation a dissertation which speaks to the fact of and it ties in the European and German and, you know, the Europeans who settled in the South and it speaks of the prize and the music also. | 21:14 |
| Speaker 12 | Um, I thought, you know, you played a piece and you said Parchman Farm. That piece, you had elaborate on that, but that has a lot of meaning to this group.In essence, when we talk about laboring in the South and having prisoners pen, contemporary labor this was an issue that we talked about last week and, you know, contract leasing and, and being in prison and being leased out, Parchman is the state penitentiary, and, and Parchman Farm Blues says a lot that we had to sing a song about working in prison. | 21:32 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | That's right. That's, you know, that's a good example of that sort of very powerful image in Black culture of a southern institution, you know, and, and Parchman Farms. There are a lot of other songs that talk about Parchman Farm as one of the most brutal of all places in the South. Um, and so that, you're right. I mean, that, that evokes all sorts of things. That, one thing that I always think about when you talk about culture is what resonates for people. You know, what, whenever you you name it does you right away, there's an emotional charge, either good or bad love or hate, you know, that's the extremes, and that's where, you know, something is culturally important, I think. | 22:11 |
| Speaker 11 | Um, you played one of today Black and White don't particularly | 22:49 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Black Black it. Yeah. | 23:00 |
| Speaker 11 | Um, during the period where country music was associated more directly White I wanted to what extent there were were Blacks who who sang in that style, but were not able to because of segregation, um display talent. | 23:01 |
| Speaker 11 | I know particularly on those places where I, I suspect that Blacks were not able to perform, but maybe they were not wanted. But I suspect I know a guy who, who knew Charley Pride and he said that he and Charley, both of them played Minor League. This guy and Jackson, both of them traveled around as as minor League baseball players. | 23:30 |
| Speaker 11 | And he said that what Charley Pride always wanted to do was sing. But and both of them were, he said Charley Pride was actually pretty good. He said, both of them, when they were nearing the end of their their stint as as Minor League baseball players, he said he was, whatcha gonna do. He said, well, man, I'm, I'm going go ahead and do what I really want to do and I want to sing. | 23:58 |
| Speaker 11 | But he really didn't sing in the way that his appeal was likely to be great in the African American community. And he said that years later, you know, he saw, he was, you know, country western and probably, I suspect exception. | 24:20 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Yeah. He was, it's, it's interesting story. There was a performer on the early Grand Ole Opry, a Black performer named Deford Bailey, and he played the harmonica. | 24:38 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And he was, you know, he, I've read stories about he was always, you know, he was, he was treated in a he was not treated equally with the other performers, but he was allowed to perform, even though the Grand Ole Opry certainly evokes White sort of culture. Um, but he was an early performer, a regular on there for years. Um, but there were not other Black performers. | 24:48 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | The Grand Ole Opry is a kind of rotating series of performers who were regulars, and there was no Black regular. He was more like the, the, um what's his name? The guy who was the mc I can't remember his name, but the regulars who were sort of the MCs and, and all of this. | 25:15 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | But in terms of the real stars, there was no Black star certainly until Charley Pride and Pride had grown up in Sledge, Mississippi, and he grew up, and again, he's a classic case of, in this popular American popular culture that were part of the common sort of national uh, culture. Um, he listened to the radio and he would hear the Grand Ole Opry Clear Channel W ss m that goes, you know, hundreds of miles. And, and so all across the south, people like Charley Pride were hearing the Grand Ole Opry. | 25:33 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Uh, and people like Elvis were hearing WLAC in Nashville, the Black playing rhythm and blues or stations in Memphis, certainly. Uh, and so that is one important thing in facilitating this kind of cultural exchanges radio. Charley Pride was listening to the Grand Ole Opry, and he liked Hank Williams. | 26:11 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | I mean, he just liked Hank Williams, that's all, all you can say. And so whenever he starts singing and he starts recording he's got, he, he has a great country voice, and it was a great, I think, shock to the Nashville Music establishment, but he had some champions, some performers like Ray Price, liked his music and, and facilitated things with the recording. | 26:29 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, and but still they, the music industry was afraid of this. I mean, it's a classic case of how slow desegregation went in anything, including culture on his first album, they didn't put his picture so people wouldn't know he was Black. And then his songs start getting played. And he's, he, he really is, in terms of country music, a great performer, you know, he just really has a great voice and style and is very identifiable. | 26:52 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And so people loved him. And then the industry lets out that he's Black, and by then he's accepted. Um, there's never since then, even there hasn't, I guess he hit it in the late sixties or early seventies. Since then, there hasn't been another, um Black performer with his kind of appeal, although a lot there are, there are more and more Black performers who you see on, on country television shows and, and sing the music. | 27:18 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, and they're more accepted, but they're, they're, no one's reached his star status yet, I think. But this, the, you know, rock, rock and roll is is important in this, in this story too, and has some lessons in terms of the multicultural south, I think, because early rock and roll came out of the South, and it was very much southern music combining rhythm and blues, blues, country music, all of these, all of these things. | 27:44 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, there's the story of Sound Phillips with Sun Studios in Memphis, and how he, he recorded a lot of the in the fifties, a lot of young performers, both Black and White. | 28:12 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, Beale Street was still, still lively back then as a musical source of clubs and things. Um, and Sam Phillips was supposedly made the statement, I, I think he did uh, that he could make a million dollars if he could sign, find a White singer who could sing the blues or sing like a Black person. Uh, now this story is in one sense a classic case. I, I think that that moment in Sun Studios, when they start recording rock and roll, that that does synthesize these various kinds of southern music and in a kind of wild way early rockabilly is really wonderful, wild, crazy music with great beats and rhythms and, and lyrics and very rooted in the South about southern things. | 28:27 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | A lot of ways in the way that later rock and roll isn't. Um, and it is about that, the recognition of that, that cultural exchange in the South. But it's still, you know, you, you have to take into account the power relationships in this situation. I don't wanna suggest that this multicultural south and the cultural exchange is, is, is is some kind of easy, sentimental, sort of, gee, don't we have a wonderful culture that we all made and we all march arm in arm to the future. | 29:14 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | You know, this, this occurred very grudgingly and, and in the context of power relations, and you see this in, in early rock and roll because a lot of the, the early Black performers were really left out, you know, Elvis for example, recorded a lot of blues songs, covered a lot of classic rhythm and blues songs that, that other Black performers had never made any money out of. And so he's the one who profits from this. Um, and a lot of, a lot of rhythm and blue singers are still bitter about that, you know, and, and uh, Little Richard, for example came out of rock and roll. | 29:43 |
| Speaker 11 | That's the real king. | 30:17 |
| Speaker 9 | Well, to understand the power of music and and the culture of the south, the terror that Whites felt, literal terror The Whites felt in the south with the advent of rock and roll. | 30:22 |
| Speaker 9 | But then you have another side of the coin with a strange phenomenon for seemingly for North Carolina, South Carolina, this beach music deal. I just happened to be at the beach one night and just happened to saunter into this beach music gathering, you know, it, were playing Temptations. I like Temptations. But the look I got let me know that I didn't have any business being there at this beach music party. Most of the music was Black. | 30:37 |
| Speaker 9 | They are forever stuck—now I remember doing the shag, wow. I was younger and came and went in the Black community, but they got stuck in the White community and got hooked onto this beach music phenomenon. They have a language, clothes, cars, it's a whole lifestyle devoted to shag-ology, I call it (laughter) that excludes Black people. Do you cover that and the culture of the American South? | 31:04 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Yeah. I think that that's a good example of the, often the unwillingness of, of Whites in the South to recognize how Black they are in terms of—you know, and a lot of what we're we're talking about is in terms of style, you know, in terms of style. | 31:34 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, and, you know, I see this at, at at Ole Miss, for example, with, with our students, our undergraduates, especially, there's long Ole Miss is a long tradition of the fraternities and sororities having dances with Black performers, you know, and, and really a kind of appreciative culture, appreciative setting for Black musical culture, but within a very, very rigid, of course understanding of, of uh, Black White relations. | 31:52 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Now, a lot of the students who are at the at Ole Miss and fraternities and sororities tend to be the, the elite, not only of Mississippi, but often other surrounding states who the school's image unfortunately, is still tied in with that, that sort of southern elitism. | 32:22 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, and so there're people who, um are, you know, come from families with a long tradition of dealing with Blacks as workers, as domestic servants that sort of thing. And they tend to think of musicians in the same way, I think, but they love the music and they love the performers. | 32:38 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | You know, they just, they, they, they're around campus and they're, they're just having a ball and everything, but it doesn't really affect the rest of their life, you know, and how they see race relations. I think it, I think it does sometimes. | 32:57 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Uh students I have in class, I beat 'em on the head with it all the time. So they, some of them actually I hope learn, you know, missionary work or whatever, but, but, but and I think now the younger generation is, is a little better at that, but there's still that tendency, and I can see how it worked in the past, especially, you know, to appreciate Black music in some degree, but not to, to, to follow it to its logical conclusions in a lot of ways. | 33:11 |
| Speaker 11 | Another illustration of that, just real quick, at the University of Miami, I'm the director of program, and when I first got there, I was sitting down student group. That was huge budget for, for, for Black History Month, I thought was very unusual. I said, that much money for Black. And they they said, yeah. However, a great portion of it is—they restrict it whether they, they get this money because they must bring, bring in a national entertainment. | 33:37 |
| Speaker 11 | And that that's the only thing they can use it for, right? They have, they still have a large amount left, but, but the, the bulk of the bulk of it, they must bring in a national known group. | 34:15 |
| Speaker 11 | And when they bring this group in, you know, with Whites come, that's one activity that, you know, you have a lot of Whites come through an Afro-American, African-American history money, and that is to that, to that big entertainment. | 34:28 |
| Speaker 11 | And it's like, it, it evolved over the years so it was explained to me that they relied on, on, on students to pick this group, to know what group to pick . And the budget is bigger. This, this amount is bigger than African American Studies budget. (laughter) | 34:40 |
| Speaker 12 | I think the entertainers, entertainers also goes back to the fact that Blacks, even as slaves were allowed to entertain and some, like, were trained, you know, a large portion of their time was spent in learning how to place their instruments so that they would be available, you know, for parties. And there are instances of slaves being loaned to plantations. And you know, I mentioned the fact that I had a slave pass and one of the slaves was a musician who traveled from plantation to plantation, and his master would have to, would have to provide a pass for his safety . So, you know, this is a phenomenal that has roots | 34:57 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | In slavery. Yeah. Well, one of the things I'm interested in, I was talking with some people when you, I think during the break about the the different perception of social roles and types in the south between Blacks and, and Whites. Often, I'm trying to understand this, you know, in, in terms of, of White society there, all societies have social roles and types as we know, you know, and certain of them have regional dimensions. | 35:48 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And in, in the south, the southern Whites, you think of the planter as one kind of social type that, that everybody outside the region notices. And it certainly rooted in the region. Um, the you know, there, there are others. The hillbilly is a type that we, we know is evokes southernism a lot. | 36:17 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And to what degree is this true in the Black community in the south, you know, and the musician is, is one possibility, you know, because in John Blassingame argues that musicians were among the, the elite that often being in the elite among slaves was not a matter of necessarily of being house servant or field slaves, that division, but depended on things like how much mobility you had. | 36:34 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | You could come and go from the plantation, how much you had the opportunity to make perhaps a little extra money just on the side whatever. And the musician had skill had talent was recognized not only from the, the planter, but from the Black community itself. | 36:58 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | But what are the, you know, different implications of being a, a musician and how the White community looks at it and how the Black community looks at it, and whether there are other social roles, you know the, the Sambo role, for example, is, is we know a lot about the mythology of that. And, and that in a sense is a kind of social role that all Whites tried to, you know, Whites tried to reduce all Black slaves to the role of Sambo, but Richard Wright would suggest that Sambo was a kind of social role that Black people could play in the Jim Crow South. | 37:18 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | You know, you could survive doing that demeaning yourself, and some people may have done that. Uh, but what are the variety of roles like that, that are, that are tied in with sort of region I, I'm curious about that and the different meanings to the White community, which sees all of this in mythical terms from racist terms, but within the Black community, it has very different meanings, | 37:49 |
| Speaker 11 | The same view. | 38:15 |
| Speaker 13 | Question, how does all of this relate to what some of your stories have called the solid south? Uh, what is your interpretation of that? | 38:34 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Well I think the solid south is a, that whole phrase and, and and the meaning of it was a part of the Jim Crow's, the southern culture, southern life, public culture in the Jim Crow era to try to achieve this White unity to to make, it's the political version of it. To try to make the, the south, solid south supporting the Democratic party to unify internally and to face the rest of the nation with this unified political power. And in order to, to do that, to blur all social class conflict and disagreement within the south, the effort to do that because if you have a south that is internally divided, where people are, are you know, where the the rural farmers, poor Black sharecroppers, poor White sharecroppers, if they unify, they're a majority. | 38:46 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And then the south is going to be a kind of cauldron of, of social class conflict and economic competition that's going to affect the region's political power vis-a-vis the rest of the nation. And, but I, I think it's broader cultural meaning is that it was part of that overarching attempt of southern, the southern White elite from the, the, certainly the antebellum period to try to convince all southern Whites that there was one southern way of doing things. You had to be united. And the way you convinced southern Whites to do this was cultivate a sense of racial obsession of fear. | 39:54 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | If you let Black people vote, if you let them have political power, if you let them have economic power, if you let treat them equal socially, that's going to and, and it was explained in terms of us against them, the, them being the north and the rest of the country. Uh, and of course the interest involved were those of the, the planter elite who might not have the power to block the tariff that would help industry and hurt their economic power as southern planters. | 40:36 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | So I think it was, it had primarily political meaning but also it gets us into the issues of social class behavior and, and the manipulation of racial fears and that broader cultural effort to, to impose upon what I see as this richness of southern culture a kind of a kind of false unity. | 41:09 |
| Speaker 13 | I think you given an excellent explanation of that, but I, and and I certainly agree with all you've said, and I think that this also is kind end danger of the fact from your explanation that the south has not changed that much. And case in point is the race between Jesse Helms and Jan, and when he came out with the same kind ideology, and this is the thing that galvanized and solidified the south and probably was probably responsible most greatly responsible for his demise. And I think this kind of gives us the, that the south is still the south , and there are many things have not changed. I mean, that's just one example. I'm sure there are some changes, but in terms of politics, | 41:32 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Well, I think that, you know, I agree with that and that that race was a classic example, but I tend to go back and forth between this and there, there is other side, obviously things have changed so much. Look at Mississippi where they have, we have a Black congressman who's on his way to being the kind of political powerhouse that Mississippi congressmen traditionally have been. I mean, he is building an incredible power base. | 42:17 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Uh, he's been reelected with overwhelming White support when he ran for reelection. He's a very powerful uh committees in Congress, all this kind of stuff. Mississippi has more Black elected officials than any, any part of the United States. Um, and I think that in certain things like um politics where they have the vote have some power, things change somewhat now, of course things don't change enough. | 42:42 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Uh, and in Mississippi politics at any time, you always know race can be a kind of hidden agenda and both at the state level and when you get down to local communities Mississippi filed a its redistricting plan, um and the federal court sent it back and said it didn't it, it wasn't appropriate. And so now it's gonna wind up in the courts because the Mississippi legislature can't agree on how to how to, to, to do this. They won't, they, | 43:13 |
| Speaker 8 | They can't. Another part of that, but that spend money. | 43:48 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | That's right. | 43:55 |
| Speaker 8 | But race as a hidden agenda issue in Mississippi is not exclusive to Mississippi. That's right. That applies to this whole country | 43:57 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Yeah. | 44:05 |
| Speaker 8 | Presidential. And it doesn't have to be in the south. | 44:06 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Yeah, I think, I think that's right. I think that one thing that's happened is, is is in the sixties and seventies we learned that racism wasn't just a southern problem, and so it's now the national | 44:08 |
| Speaker 14 | It's not always Black and White either. Yeah. Not always Black and White. Just that, keep that back in mind. There are Black racists. | 44:24 |
| Speaker 13 | I think think also what rock and roll music has a kind of a sub had a subversive element and a subversive impact to it that you could trace and part back to Black music. Uh, the field songs, which might to the White ear have sounded one way, but Black sensibilities reflected a very different reality. | 44:32 |
| Speaker 13 | Although the, the subversiveness of rock and roll was not at all subtle rock and roll was, you know, was very powerful. Wasn't any nuance about it. It was very anti-authoritarian. , it was very loud and offensive in a way that, and very sensual. And very sensual. Yeah, that's true too. And despite the fact that White performers like Elvis appropriated not only the music, but the style of White performers still rock and roll served to introduce Black performers to a White artist for the first time, I can remember Little Richard was the first adult man I'd ever seen that wore pancake makeup, but hey, it didn't bother me at all because what I was hitting on was the sound and the kind of oppositional, anti-authoritarian free form that it introduced. So in a way, maybe rock and roll by being so anti-authoritarian and by being also very profoundly multicultural. | 44:54 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | So, you know what, what, and, and the faculty dislikes this and, and the faculty senate has gone on record urging the change and all this. And, and but but the big development is the alumni association finally came out against the use of the name Rebel and against the Confederate flag and all of this. And of course, the reason is not some sort of liberalization, but the sense that it's hurting football recruiting of Black athletes (laughter) | 0:01 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Ole Miss though does have the highest, its football team is the highest percentage of Black athletes in the Southeast Conference. Um, and so we we recruit a lot of, of good Black athletes and it's, I mean, bound to be uncomfortable and controversial for them, whatever. But the football program in the athletic department does down try downplay this. I mean, I think the problem has been mostly with alumni and students now. I've witnessed that change in the 10 years I've been there. | 0:33 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, and I, and I think that Ole Miss is much more plugged into national perceptions of things and to, and to the implications in the South in terms of our history to these things. But like a lot of administrators, ours aren't exactly courageous on a lot of things. So they think they're taking on alumni powerful alumni. And that's why this announcement by the alumni association, I think is gonna be important in that they, | 1:05 |
| Speaker 2 | They took the Rebel off football helmet a few yearsback | 1:34 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | They did. That's right. That's right. | 1:38 |
| Speaker 3 | I might say this, that the rebel and Confederate flags are not issues that are unique to Mississippi. Uh, I think throughout the south of Texas, for example, one public high school after another has bay follow the issue. Yeah. Until I think by now probably most of the schools that were formerly called Rebels are now Raiders and different other things. And they have gradually and grudgingly, I think my colleague out most recently in West Texas where Midland High School. You may be familiar with that. Yeah. So it is a, it is a phenomena that's uh, based throughout the south. | 1:41 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | You get into the symbolism is, is interesting. Um, when I was doing research, my dissertation and book Baptized in Blood is about this sort of lost cause symbolism, how it got so fastened on the south and got tied in with sort of religious blessings and a kind of civil religion. We were talking about what term to refer to this nationalism or whatever, it's kind of civil religion, the sense that God ordained the south to be this way. And, you know, if, if people think that it's almost impossibly, that's why it's so tenacious is it's not just politics or culture, but it's God wills. | 2:17 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | But I was, I was traveling around the South as a graduate student doing research on this, and I was in a little town in Tennessee, and I just stopped for a, and I came out and I was thinking about all this kind of symbolism of the Confederacy anyway, and inside the hamburger place, this young teenage Black girl, 15 or so had a sweatshirt on of her high school that said, I'm proud to be a rebel, you know, and, and had the flag even. | 2:51 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And I, I look at it and don't say anything to her, and then I walk outside and these sort of Hell's Angels White kids had upholstered their convertible in the Confederate flag. And I thought, now this is, this is symbolic overload. You know, I can't, what does all this, what would Robert E. Lee think about this? You know, it's just, it was too much. | 3:17 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And and but I, as I said earlier, I think the contemporary south is trying to somehow figure out our symbolism, you know, what are gonna be symbols that are appropriate for a biracial people that finally is trying to recognize its, its heritage. | 3:37 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | And I think that the public culture of the South increasingly does try to do that. You know, the, the governor's messages talk a message of a biracial south of of all inclusive and inclusive south of what we hear on television and what we read in the newspapers, the cultural institutions of the official south speak this message. | 3:56 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Um, but what are the symbols that will do it? I mean, is it, is it some combination of our history or is it more appropriate to somehow, you know cultural figures? Is it to have Charley Pride and, and Elvis and, and Robert Johnson and, and whoever, you know, somehow is it musicians and athletes? I think in fact, they are the kind of cultural figures that unite Southerners, you know, the stories of, of the Herschel Walker who become such an incredibly popular figure in his little town in Georgia, that little White kids follow him around and hero worship and all of this. And, and Marcus Dupree and, and— | 4:18 |
| Speaker 4 | Well, we, Michael Jordan is—I mean name a freeway after him, but in this calmer, gentler form of racism that glorifies the athlete. Um, you go to a Southern Boys home, they got Michael Jordan and Herschel Walker all raise a Black folk on their bedroom walls. That's why I say kindly gentleman form of racism. | 4:56 |
| Speaker 4 | But yet, when you have let's take Durham for example me school system and have merge all across the American South, problems pop up that let us know that it's old South, but still it's New South, but still old south. | 5:19 |
| Speaker 4 | And one of the things that I found when I go around to different young folks, groups that speaks to younger people, whether they're Black, White, Asian, or whatever, see hypocrisy in their parents, you have to take this area as an example, research triangle. You got five or six major universities in the area, and yet the prospect of Durham, city, of Durham County schools are merging. | 5:35 |
| Speaker 4 | We might as be back in 19 seven in Arkansas at Central High School because that's the fear that's running rampant through these kind, gentler, racist people. And those symbols play well for a while, but then when it time at times to make actual changes in curriculum, changes in systems, it lasts rather thin. So do you think that we, we move ahead slowly stop and then turn around and go back? Or do you think we make it enough progress? | 5:57 |
| Speaker 4 | 'Cause see, I, I, I understand that this is a new South, but by the same token, I still see, whenever I go to low country Georgia and South Carolina, they have these new areas named after Plantation. These folks can't even get to where their ancestors are buried. | 6:28 |
| Speaker 4 | Same thing here in Durham County where I work at Stagville. Treyburn brought up all this huge amount of property. I want to study the grave, the cemeteries, the old folks want to visit them, but you can't go without a pass past. And so how do we fit that into this new South? | 6:42 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Yeah. You know, the real thing that I worry about is that, that it's not a matter of sort of slow progress or something that we have gone through a period where there's been some change and there has been change, and that we will then enter a period of really things reverting dramatically somehow. You know, it's like the late 19th century where you have the 1890s that all at once, things just go awful. You know, with economic crisis, I think in American history, there's certainly this tradition of when things take an economic downturn race comes to the fore and racial obsessions and what became, what were hidden agendas in more prosperous times become very open, ugly agendas. | 6:56 |
| Speaker 5 | Yeah. Alice brings an excellent point, and I think relate directly to some of the kinds of some of the kinds of issues that, that are likely to be dealt with by, well, by some members of this institute in terms of becoming part of a consortium that involves um, instituting new courses that attempt to to, to teach about, you know diversity about an aspect that tends to increase the, the diversity of the offering that will address some of the the needs of documenting aspects of African American lives and the, the, the resistance that exists in some, in some settings where substantive changes are required when things that are not superficial but are less substantive, are, you know are, are, are changed. | 7:42 |
| Speaker 5 | Um, the case, for example, in Miami, which is, is a place that has been riffed with racial strife. Uh, it's very, very interesting that in the area of athletics, the University of Miami over the past few years has had a very successful, hottest, successful program. Not only in terms of what they have done on the field, but what, what what they have done in the city of Miami in that area. You know? And the Orange Bowl is packed with Black and White people looking mostly and rooting for mostly Black athletes and identifying very strongly with these athletes and with the University of Miami as being a, an example of, of, of multiculturalism with respect to one dimension. | 8:56 |
| Speaker 5 | Uh, yet at the University of Miami twice in the last year, I've submitted a very innocuous course on Introduction to African American studies to be included among the 68 courses that satisfied general university requirements. And the fact that they had resisted accepting that course and including that course no on no, with no substantive grinds for its, for the quality of this teaching, for the fact that enrollment has doubled each time it's been taught, is simply resisting that, resisting it, because they want the curriculum to look exactly the same. | 9:42 |
| Speaker 5 | And so for some of us, in terms of the kind of receptivity to multiculturalism on some dimensions, it's very easy to be, for it to be embraced, right? Sure. But on other dimensions, I suspect that attempting to introduce a year long course without, unless I can bring in, show some money that where it's gonna be release time and some other things the university can get, the attitude is gonna be one of resistance. "We don't need another course," you know. | 10:19 |
| Speaker 5 | Particularly something outside of the mainstream of the curriculum, you know, so the point is that in terms of symbolism, that removing the rebel flag and little things in terms of what that represents, it may be less substantive than some of the real sure ways in which multicultural introduced and promoted. | 10:46 |
| Speaker 3 | I say to underscore, the parameters within which Blacks are allowed to offer within the mainstream higher education in terms of athletics some other things they're purposely acceptable. Uh, however, when you move into the higher realms of intellectualism, I think there's an entirely different story. Athletics is all right? Yeah. Same as entertainment, | 11:09 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Right? Those are still ways of defining a place for, for African Americans. I, I agree and involve exploitation and the whole problem of college athletics where Black athletes are, are certainly exploited in many ways. Um you know, cultural symbolism is, is is difficult because it, it often, it's hard to tell that it has any impact on the rest of society. Uh, but I think it, it, it does in some ways, and I think it can influence behavior how it does it. I, I don't know exactly. | 11:33 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | I mean, I mentioned before this problem of people acting on symbolism more than, than self-interest often, you know, and, and cultural symbols can be very powerful the way the Republicans used the Willie Horton symbol in the last election, you know, and that was a symbol that evoked somehow fears in the White psyche. | 12:11 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | Uh, a lot of the symbols we're talking, I'm talking about in the South, are I, I think still positive symbols, you know, cultural achievement and, and that somehow doesn't influence behavior exactly the same way. I mean, it may not be as emotionally charged. It may be slower, it may be more of an cumulative kind of thing. Um, it may be generational thing too. Uh, I, I don't know. Um, but I think we can learn something from those, those symbols. And it may be that, that that it's limited. Uh, but | 12:35 |
| Charles Reagan Wilson | You know, I think it's better, for example, that the contemporary south at least have these positive images of, of cultural integration examples of that as part of our public ideology. You know, public ideologies don't necessarily reflect reality as we know, but they often influence the way people behave. And something that in the public mind evokes positive images is, is, is good, I think. Um, and it doesn't mean that it's going to, to to predominate over other kinds of fears or, or um but it's one, it's one kind of, of symbol. Uh, and I think it is something that certainly the attention that is evoked by the, these uh, these kind of cultural activities in the South with sports and, and music and other things reflects a great investment on the part of, not just southerners obviously, but Americans in all these kind of forms of culture. | 13:12 |
| Speaker 6 | Well, I think we have reached a point of, on behalf of the institute, Professor Wilson, I would like to thank you for with us this, we plan to regroup here at. | 14:18 |
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