I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.
Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning.
It’s the fourth of July. Independence Day in America. I’ve been hearing a lot of fireworks for about a month now. I’ve rather tired of it, actually. Instead of the usual musical fare, I’ve listed some perhaps less obvious songs that can represent the day. Add your choices in the comments.
Martina McBride. This song, written by Gretchen Peters, has been covered by several artists including Carrie Underwood. “In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song #77 in their list of the 100 greatest country songs.”
“She tried to pretend he wasn’t drinkin’ again
“But daddy’d left the proof on her cheek.”
Independence Day – Bruce Springsteen, from The River album.
“There’s a lot of people leaving town now
“Leaving their friends, their homes”
Independence Day – David Byrne.
“We know what will make us happy
“We know what will ease our pain”
More cheerful. I love this musically.
Independence Day – 5 Seconds of Summer.
“I gotta break away or nothing’s gonna change
“You’ve got to go, it’s the end of the road”
Independence Day – the Shires.
“You’re better off without
“Someone who gets you down”
Instrumental interlude: ID4 Reprise – Independence Day Resurgence Official Soundtrack
Every day’s…
On the 4th of July – James Taylor
“Unbelievable you, impossible me,
“The fool who fell out of the family tree.”
Fourth of July – Pete Droge
“When you’re sick of the trying
“And you’re tired of the crying”
A depressing song.
Fourth of July – Sufjan Stevens
“It was night when you died, my firefly.”
Ditto.
Fourth of July –Fall Out Boy
“You and I were fire, fire fireworks that went off too soon.”
4th of July –Shooter Jennings
“Couldn’t take no more of that rock ‘n’ roll”
Oddly, there’s a lot of rock riffs in that country guitar, I think.
4th of July – Soundgarden
“Pale in the flare light
“The scared light cracks and disappears”
USED BY Dr. Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., on August 28, 1963 in Washington, DCWith all the talk about Juneteenth 1865, it’s important to note how awful the NEXT century was for black Americans. I would posit that the century (1865-1965) was arguably worse.
My view is certainly affected by white compatriots in the 1970s and later. They would say, often genuinely, “Why are black people doing so poorly? Slavery ended over a century ago!” As though there was a light switch from enslavement to freedom. As though it were suddenly a level playing field. Here are some of the factors. Of course, they naturally overlap.
The 13th Amendment, ratified in December 1865. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. This provision is why one should watch Thirteenth.
Reparations. The formerly enslaved people generally did not receive the promised 40 acres.
Black codes: their primary purpose was to restrict blacks’ labor and activity, including “strict vagrancy and labor contract laws… Blacks who broke labor contracts were subject to arrest, beating, and forced labor… Passed by a political system in which blacks effectively had no voice, [they] were enforced by all-white police and state militia forces—often made up of Confederate veterans of the Civil War—across the South.” The federal government turned a blind eye.
You can never get out from under
Peonage, also called debt slavery or debt servitude: a system where an employer compels a worker to pay off a debt with work. Those hundreds of White men, were hired by several southern states as police officers.
“Their primary responsibility was to search out and arrest Blacks who were in violation of Black Codes. Once arrested, these men, women, and children would be leased to plantations where they would harvest cotton, tobacco, sugar cane. Or they would be leased to work at coal mines or railroad companies. The owners of these businesses would pay the state for every prisoner who worked for them; prison labor.” In other words, it was…
Slavery by Another Name: Douglas A. Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, made into a documentary. “Tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible ‘debts,’ prisoners were sold as forced laborers…" [Compare this with the current discussion on bail reform.] Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude.”
A couple of examples: “In Louisiana, it was illegal for a Black man to preach to Black congregations without special permission in writing from the president of the police. If caught, he could be arrested and fined. If he could not pay the fines, which were unbelievably high, he would be forced to work for an individual or go to jail or prison where he would work until his debt was paid off.
“In South Carolina, if the parent of a Black child was considered vagrant, the judicial system allowed the police and/or other government agencies to ‘apprentice’ the child to an ’employer’. Males could be held until the age of 21, and females could be held until they were 18. Their owner had the legal right to inflict punishment on the child for disobedience and to recapture them if they ran away."
“It is believed that after the passing of the 13th Amendment, more than 800,000 Blacks were part of the system of peonage, or re-enslavement through the prison system. Peonage didn’t end until after World War II.” And unlike a slave, who was considered property, the prisoner, if they died, could just be replaced by another prisoner to work in the factory.
Federal abandonment
The end of Reconstruction: the federal response to Reconstruction, often spotty, ended with the compromise that made Rutherford B. Hayes President.
The Ku Klux Klan: a terrorist organization of vigilantes designed “to intimidate Southern blacks – and any whites who would help them.”
Jim Crow Laws – a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. They were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education, or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence, and death.” It was codified by the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). This was the period when those hated Confederate statues were being built in large numbers.
Red Summer. Between April and November of 1919,, there were “approximately 25 riots and instances of white mob violence [and] 97 recorded lynchings.”
In the small town of Elaine, Arkansas, racial tensions turned brutally violent after African-American sharecroppers tried to unionize. A staggering 237 people were estimated to be hunted down and killed in what is now known as the Elaine Massacre. The bloodbath made its way all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.
Birth of a Nation: “D. W. Griffith’s disgustingly racist yet titanically original 1915 feature film.” It and the presence of returning black WWI vets inspired both The Red Summer and a resurgence of the KKK.
Federal wealth theft
Redlining: In 1933, “faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America’s housing stock.” Richard Rothstein’s book, “The Color of Law, examines the local, state, and federal housing policies that mandated segregation. He notes that the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, furthered the segregation efforts by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods.”
The G.I. Bill. It “provided financial support in the form of cash stipends for schooling, low-interest mortgages, job skills training, low-interest loans, and unemployment benefits. But many African Americans who served in World War II never saw these benefits.” And not just in the South. This lost potential for creating wealth had generational implications.
This is a very cursory view of 1865-1965. I left off the last 15 years, the “classic” Civil Rights era of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, et al. In any case, it should be clear that the century after the Civil War, black people were hardly “free.”
Per my promise to my friend Lori, why I ended up leaving Trinity United Methodist Church in 2000.
The story really started in 1997 or 1998. The UM hierarchy had allowed churches to change its governance to something more compact than the Administrative Board we had. Our congregation had a meeting. Some folks, notably the late Bob Pennock, noted that he couldn’t see the checks and balances in the proposed new structure. But others argued, “Give it a chance.” The motion passed. Notably opposing the action were several members of the choir, including me.
In 1999, the church got a new choir director. His name now escapes me, but I know he was from Brazil. It became clear early on that he just DID NOT want to be there. Albany was too parochial, and as fall turned to winter, too damn cold.
The Brazilian wasn’t stupid, though. He needed a way to get out of his contract. So he claimed that a member of the choir had said an ethnically offensive comment to him. (I wasn’t present, so my information is second-hand.)
As a result of his allegation, the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee (PPRC) – which had no authority to do so – nevertheless suspended the choir in January 2000. The choir was so angry that some of us at least considered populating the choir loft in defiance. But we opted against that.
Then suddenly
Meanwhile, our church had a Spanish-language congregation that met in the chapel, slightly earlier on Sundays than the English-language folks met in the sanctuary. The Anglo church had voted overwhelmingly in November 1999 to continue the relationship.
Yet, later in January 2000, while I was attending the Spanish-language service, the pastor, Mariana, circulated a letter to her flock. It was from the District Superintendent saying that they would be moved to Emmaus UMC in Albany the following week! The group was stunned. But I was furious! I took copies of the letter and started handing them out to the Anglo congregants who were sitting near the back of the church, who would otherwise have had no idea this displacement was going on.
For the next two weeks, I attended the Spanish-language service in the basement of Emmaus. The facility had two distinct disadvantages. It was not accessible, which involved some of us carrying a man in his wheelchair downstairs. And it was cold, damn cold, with my feet getting numb.
Mao would be proud
As I noted, I started singing at First Presbyterian. But my wife was still going to Trinity, so I’d walk over to meet her after services. One time, a Trinity member asked me, “What IS it with the Gang of Six?” I knew that the PPRC had dubbed Bob Pennock and his wife, plus two other couples with this moniker. But the gossip mill must have been at work for HER to have heard the term.
In March, there was a meeting called by the chair of the PPRC. Judy was also the woman who coordinated Carol and my wedding at Trinity only months earlier. The gathering was billed as an opportunity for the choir to have its say. Alas, untrue. Judy did most of the talking, which included the idea that the choir members sign a loyalty oath to the pastor. Ultimately, only one person eventually signed it.
At the end of the meeting, Judy was looking all self-satisfied. She took the tears of some choir members as a sign of their remorse. Instead, they were the tears of the unheard. As we walked out of the church, I said to a smiling Judy, “That was B###S###.” She was both crestfallen and confused.
And the sign said…
I did attend a congregational meeting in May at Trinity. The cabal around the pastor wanted to have a sign that read: “Trinity: A Multicultural Congregation.” Seriously, after chasing away the SECOND of two Spanish-language groups in about four years? After some machinations, we were able to defeat the motion. But did I want to spend all my energy at Trinity trying to STOP things from happening? I did not.
Ultimately, I didn’t leave Trinity because the choir was suspended, or because of the ouster of the Spanish-language group. It was because there was no vehicle for recourse. The old Administrative Board was gone; these issues would certainly have been addressed there.
The pastor’s cabal allowed a meeting on a specific topic only with a petition signed by 10% of the membership. Since there were plenty of older members on the rolls but not attending services, this would have been a daunting task, not just on these issues but any future conflicts.
I had avoided talking about this topic, just referring to them as The Troubles. So now you know.
But nope. It was frankly boring to me. I just didn’t give a damn about watching it.
The GWTW news reminded some of us about the indignities faced by Hattie McDaniel. She played “Mammy” in the movie, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Know that she became the FIRST African American to win an Oscar. “She and her escort were required to sit at a segregated table for two… The discrimination continued after the award ceremony as well as her white costars went to a ‘no-blacks’ club, where McDaniel was denied entry.”
She was philosophical about her movie roles. “Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making $7 a week being one.”
Now, this very year, I DID finally see Hattie McDaniel in the movie Song of the South (1946), in which she played Aunt Tempy. “The kindhearted storyteller Uncle Remus tells [children] stories about trickster Br’er Rabbit, who outwits Br’er Fox and slow-witted Br’er Bear.”
Its controversial history is well known. Walter Francis White, the Executive Secretary, said in 1946 that the organization “recognizes in Song of the South remarkable artistic merit in the music and in the combination of living actors and the cartoon technique. It regrets, however, that in an effort neither to offend audiences in the north or south, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, Song of the South, unfortunately, gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts.”
A couple of clarifications. I never got the sense that the story took place during slavery, but rather during Reconstruction. Yes, Uncle Remus does the Magic Negro thing near the end, but it was the times. And the film itself was well done, as the NAACP chief noted, with the usual solid Disney animation and fine acting by James Baskett.
While the narrative of the Uncle Remus stories in cartoon form made me uncomfortable, I’ve seen so much worse. The Abraham scene in Holiday Inn (1942), which I wrote about seven years ago. Alas, the link no longer works. But A.O. Scott in his 2008 Critics’ Picks for the New York Times, provides a snippet.
For the Greeks, “idiot” carried a precise and special meaning. The person who was only interested in private life, private gain, private advantage. Who had no conception of a public good, common wealth, shared interest. To the Greeks, the pioneers of democracy, the creators of the demos, such a person was the most contemptible of all. Because even the Greeks seemed to understand: you can’t make a functioning democracy out of…idiots.”
The Lincoln Project ads: Chyna and truth (testing to be slowed down).
It’s the fourth of July. Independence Day in America. I’ve been hearing a lot of fireworks for about a month now. I’ve rather tired of it, actually. Instead of the usual musical fare, I’ve listed some perhaps less obvious songs that can represent the day. Add your choices in the comments.
Slavery by Another Name: Douglas A. Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, made into a documentary. “Tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible ‘debts,’ prisoners were sold as forced laborers…" [Compare this with the current discussion on bail reform.] Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude.”
Per 
