Posted on 05/09/2006 8:54:07 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. Some parents are asking for answers after their children sang a popular marching song of the Confederacy during a Civil War history lesson. At least five black students sang, along with other fifth-graders, the lyrics of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" at the closing of last Friday's program at The Highlands School in Mountain Brook.
The 1861 song was written in honor of the blue flag with the white star that Mississippi flew over the state Capitol upon seceding from the Union.
Some are the lyrics are --quote-- "We are a band of brothers and native to the soil. Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil."
Whitlynn Battle told the Birmingham there's no explanation or excuse for the song's inclusion in the program, which her 11-year-old daughter participated in.
Highlands School is a private school for 4-year-olds through eighth-graders and according to its web site, about 11 percent of its 280 students are minorities.
Dale Hanson, the school's acting head, said he has received a couple of e-mails and the school is handling the issue in-house.
I'm sorry, someone please explain the offense to me. I'm dense I guess.
Blacks (I refuse to ever, ever use the "African-American" term) are playing the victim card once again.
We are a band of brothers,
Native to the soil
Fighting for the property
We gained by honest toil.
And when our rights were threatened,
The cry rose near and far;
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
chorus:
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Southern rights, Hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
As long as the Union
Was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and brethren,
kind were we, and just;
But now, when Northern treachery
Attempts our rights to mar,
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue flag
That bears a single star.
First gallant South Carolina
Nobly made the stand,
Then came Alabama
And took her by the hand;
Next, quickly, Mississippi,
Georgia, and Florida,
All raised on high the Bonnie Blue flag
That bears a single star.
Ye men of valor gather round
The banner of the right,
Texas and fair Louisiana
Join us in the fight;
Davis, our loved President,
And Stephens statesmen are;
Now rally round the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star.
And here's to brave Virginia,
The Old Dominion State.
With the young Confederacy
At length has linked her fate.
Impelled by her example,
Now other States prepare
To hoist on high the Bonnie Blue flag
That bears a single star.
Then here's to our Confederacy,
Strong we are and brave,
Like patriots of old we'll fight,
Our heritage to save.
And rather than submit to shame,
To die we would prefer
So cheer for the Bonnie Blue flag
That bears a single star.
Then cheer, boys, cheer,
Raise a joyous shout
For Arkansas and North Carolina
Now have both gone out;
And let another rousing cheer
For Tennessee be given
The single star of the Bonnie Blue Flag
Has grown to be eleven!
I suppose some people think it's the first step on the road back to slavery/s
Sheesh. Is there anything that doesn't offend somebody these days?
It's a private school. If you're upset, send your kid elsewhere.
Great melody, too.
ping
oh good grief
I remember learning this in elementary school in NY, and no one made a fuss.
It's the same as asking a black person to sing Dixie.
Some teacher snuck it in under the parental radar to make a political point.
But why would it be that??
Or perhaps, just perhaps, the teacher was actually trying to instruct her students in the history of their state. Yes, even if that means that black students have to temporarily confront the fact that their ancestors were enslaved, at the risk that they'll be "offended." Seems to me that if they learn about the songs and material culture of those times, it's a more valuable lesson than if they just memorize the names and dates of certain battles and generals. There's nothing so offensive in those lyrics anyway.
I hoep the teacher doesn't pay the price of her honesty with her job.
ok, what's wrong with singing Dixie?
I love to sing Dixie to my kids. Ok, we're of the dread "white race" but still....what???
You are not dense, that I know, the offense is beyond me as well.
If they, whoever they are, don't like the song, turn up the bass and hear your fenders rattle.
I shall never apologize for my heritage, the music, or the flag.
There is some speculation that Dan Emmett, credited with writing "Dixie", may have heard it from Black Southerners.
Some people know who (not what) the "property we gained by honest toil" was. We also know, from reading the acts of secession of the various Confederate States, that to which the phrase "Southern rights" refers.
So, you don't like the song Dixie.
Well, I don't like Snoop Doggy Dog.
Do you like Beethoven?
If you don't like the song, don't put the CD in your damn player.
Oh, it's WVTM. I live in the area.
May God bless the great state of Alabama.
I give no apology and I expect none.
Yet I am often "asked" to sing *The Battle Hymn of the Republic,* which is OK, I love the hymn, but only stand up for it in church.
Is it because the Union, the Grand Army of the Republic, "won" the Civil War and *Dixie* is associated with the South, the side that "lost" the war, that all references should be banished? Like "to the victor go the spoils" - is that it?
Nothing offense of this song. The tune sounds familiar. :)
Does the phrase "States rights" resonate with you?
The answer is no.
You assume unto your northern ass more knowledge than you possess.
Flame away, pull the post, report me, I could not care less.
Hilltop
Son of the South.
Then there's always the urban legend "back story" of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," our perennial grade school favorite down here, as well as in other states.
Look what Mitch Miller foisted off on the country, lol.
The word that comes to mind is perverse.
For someone that uses whiteout on a computer monitor, you are most intelligent.
OK, it's an old blonde joke.
Thanks for your post, well written.
A small group of us on FR have said for years that the attack on Southern cultural artifacts such as songs, memorials, statues, plaques, flags, stories, and such will spread to the other American cultural items (Constitution, Bill of Rights, state songs, state flags, local city/county seals, Pledge of Allegiance). It's even spread to sports team names and mascots.
It is pathetic and ridiculous. PC is the cancer on society. It euphemism for Communism and Nazism. It was PC for them to hate America, Christians, and Jews, which it is today.
whaa, whaa, whaa, and take Huckleberry Finn out of the library too. sarcasm off
And yet you still refuse to blame the Democrats for doing so for political and monetary gain.
Why is it that you can't blame the racism that has existed in the South in all it's most horrible forms on the "Old" south's Democrat Masters?
We sang Dixie when I was a boy....blacks too.
A Yankee wrote Dixie.
We also sand that song about picking cotton too and nobody whined.
Being offended is frequently nothing other than a political tactic.
Are you black?
You're always all over this stuff...like it's personal.
I'm a white Mississppian of 7th generation and 48 years old as a matter of disclosure.
We can agree to have different perspectives to be fair but when I was a boy local blacks were not terribly angry over this sorta stuff
and we indeed did sing Dixie and other Southern vernacular works together and no one blinked.
I was at Ole Miss in the late 70s and never saw any blacks there up in arms over any of this.
If it wasn't evil then...why now?
Are you folks just more astute and recognize evil where we might have missed it or has just become a convenient foil.
With all due respect, unless you are invoking the childhood verse, "Jump down, turn around, pick a bail of cotton.", then the song to which you refer IS Dixie.
what was that cotton patch song?
i never knew Dixie past 1 or 2 verses
I doubt that in say 1963, blacks in Mississippi could speak with the same freedom about not liking "Dixie" that they can today. Fear does not equal liking or loving something.
Many whites today hold their tongue about aspects of black culture that they don't like for fear of being labeled a "racist". I imagine it worked the same way in reserve back then, if you were black you held your tongue for fear of being considered "uppity".
sure....we were lynching blacks in the 60s in the South if they failed to sing Dixie...lol
where do ya'll get this stuff from....you can't make it up
First openly hostile blacks I ever saw in my life was 20 years later in Manhattan.
I like to think my hometown blacks were just nicer and had better manners.
But you can think what makes you feel superior.
That's what I was thinking, too, lol. Wracking my brain about another cotton-pickin' school-age song. Maybe the boll weevil song? "Jes lookin' for a home ..." Naw, that came out as an R&B song.
Oh, I know! "When I was a little bitty baby, my momma used to rock me in the cradle ... in them old cotton fields back home ..." No mention of picking it, though.
Wow, I bet the peanut allergy kids break out in hives if they do the Civil War marching song from the South ... peas, peas, peas, peas ... eatin' goober peas. That would be offensive.
Cotton-picking songs, hmmm.
I sure don't hold my tongue.
Anyone looking for a soft rollover guilty white boy in me is wasting their time.
I've never done anything to anyone minority or otherwise who didn't have it coming.
And I"m tired of hearing all this crap and excuse making.
None of this has diddly to do with what is broke in the black culture today in 2006. It's just a smokescreen.
Not Dixie, nor Rebel Flags, not even Sweet Home Alabama.
The broken part of black culture today is the fault of blacks...just like anyone else.
You coulda pinged me....cotton fields back home...another racist song.
I am serious.
There are thousands of songs worth singing and yet this confederate marching song was used to create the very outrage and debate we see before us.
That's perverse.
But it was somewhere in Louisiana, "just about a mile from Texarkana," wasn't it? Ha ha, it's at least 30 miles, minimum, from the outskirts of Texarkana to the Louisiana border.
Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie
Hear the Northern thunders mutter!
Northern flags in South winds flutter!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Send them back your fierce defiance!
Stamp upon the accursed alliance!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie.
Fear no danger! Shun no labor!
Lift up rifle, pike and saber!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder,
Let the odds make each heart bolder!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Advance the flag of Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie.
Swear upon our country's altar
Never to submit or to falter,
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Till the spoilers are defeated,
Till the Lord's work is completed!
To arms ! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Advance the flag of Dixie.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie's land we take our stand,
And live or die for Dixie!
To Arms! To Arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie
To Arms! To Arms
And conquer peace for Dixie
What doesn't upset black parents?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.