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CLASSROOM MUSIC: THE STATE SONG

By Karen Ellis

WHAT IS OFFENSIVE NOW IN 2019 - TEACH IN CONTEXT


Maryland My Maryland is sung at the Preakness Stakes which is televised. Maryland lawmakers who support changing the official state song think the time is right to finally wipe away "Northern scum" and other sensitive pre-Civil War phrases.
Randall's poem calls for Maryland to secede from the Union at a time before the Civil War when many Maryland residents sympathized with the Confederacy. He wrote it while distraught about a friend shot during a melee when Union troops marched through Baltimore on their way to Washington. The song begins with a hostile reference to President Abraham Lincoln: "The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!" It ends with a call for the state to stand up to the Union: "She is not dead, nor deaf, or dumb — Huzza! She spurns the Northern scum!"
"Maryland, My Maryland," set to the traditional seasonal tune of "O, Tannenbaum," was written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall and adopted as the state song in 1939. In replacing the 150-year-old song, the panel recommended adopting “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the state song. Its author, Francis Scott Key, was from Maryland and it is about a battle that took place in Baltimore. The panel also suggested simply abandoning the idea of having a state song. New Jersey is the only state in the union that does not have an official state song.

RACISM DESTROYED IN 1 MINUTE by Jane Elliott and she explains White Privilage that what we were doing in the 50's (language) we are still doing now.

3rd grade and older

 

TEACHING TOLERANCE
Folk and work songs always have been windows into culture and history. But many of the Hate songs being sung by "folk groups" at "folk music events" show the Intersection between Cultural Identity and Racist Ideology.

Classroom Music: Why don't teachers teach our state songs in our schools?

PREPARATION:

ASK: Does an action require racist intent to be #racist?

2019 Article - Is Blackface always racist? What is considered offensive in 2019?

The ugly legacy of #minstrelsy.

Teach & Discuss in Context:

"In Virginia and in the nation we are in cultural and political turmoil over the legacy of Blackface.
Steve Zeitlin and Paul Wagner's film Free Show Tonight gives some perspective
http://www.folkstreams.net/film-detail.php?id=68
then Scroll down to Glenn Hinson's essay on Black entertainers.
http://www.folkstreams.net/film-context.php?id=124 " ~ Tom Davenport Folkstreams.net

Florida's Official State Song by Stephen Foster, loved a century ago is highly offensive to USA citizens in the 21st century.
Maybe it is time to bring back "Florida My Florida" which was the state song in 1913.

VIDEO: In 2000 Florida Folk Heritage Award winner and Tallahassee blues legend Charles Atkins was very proud to sing Florida's orginal state song.
This song was chosen by Florida Governor Charlie Crist as his inaugural song over the traditional, "Old Folks At Home". Atkins hopes that "Florida Song" will catch on and become the official song of the State of Florida. Dr. Gregory Hansen announced his and recalls how proud to say “My state came through for me!. Sir Charles Atkins, Professor of the Blues, Tallahassee's Soul Brother Number One

HOW LANGUAGE AND CULTURE WORK

Maya Angelou The Power Of Words on CBS comments on words Don Imus used referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team which sparked off a national debate about the power of words.

You can't copyright culture The times you live in dictate what is acceptable. If it is vulgar, then no one can say it.

The Power of Words by Maya Angelou

Rosa Parks
The Woman Who Changed a Nation refused to give up her seat to a white man December 1, 1955 passed away 10/54/05 when she was 92 years old. Mrs. Parks and other African Americans fought against racism, segregation, and the Jim Crow laws of the time.

Do you find the use of the word "darkeys" offensive in Florida's current State Song?

TEACH YOUR STATE SONGS IN CONTEXT.

MAKE INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS IN YOUR CLASSROOM

Would Rosa Parks or Maya Angelou want this song sung in our classrooms across America?

 

Do You Know Florida's State Song?

hThe Swanee River
(Old Folks at Home)
Written by Stephen C. Foster

sung by Paul Robeson or Al Jolson

Way down upon de Swanee Ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere's wha de old folks stay.
All up and down de whole creation
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.

Chorus

All de world am sad and dreary,
Eb-rywhere I roam;
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home!

2nd verse

All round de little farm I wandered
When I was young,
Den many happy days I squandered,
Many de songs I sung.
When I was playing wid my brudder
Happy was I;
Oh, take me to my kind old mudder!
Dere let me live and die.

3rd Verse

One little hut among de bushes,
One dat I love
Still sadly to my memory rushes,
No matter where I rove.
When will I see de bees a-humming
All round de comb?
When will I hear de banjo strumming,
Down in my good old home?

The OFFICIAL words are the original words for The Swanee River (Old Folks at Home) authored by Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour and written in imitation of dialect.

meet Expert
Dr. John Rickford


learn to respect dialect speakers.

"The roots of dialect come from a legitimate authentic language."

TIP: What is NOT DIALECT

ABOUT LINGUISTICS
Brenda Marie Osbey says, "In reality, it is difficult to find any group of African Americans anywhere in the continental U.S. who ever employed either "I'se gwine" or "I'sa gwine." Both are the result of literary invention termed in African American literary circles "plantation dialect" created primarily for comic/derisive effect by 19th century white Southern authors of the so-called "plantation school."

Because of the popularity of this usage, spelling and the related images it created of Southern racial typing, the earliest African American authors of fiction (e.g. Charles Waddell Chestnut) were compelled by (white) publishers to employ similar spellings in their own works. The poet / critic / literary historian Sterling Brown was the first to attempt to distinguish between this invented "plantation dialect" and what he termed "authentic Negro folk speech."

 

Maybe it is time to bring back "Florida My Florida" which was the State Song in 1913.

Through House Concurrent Resolution No. 22 in 1935, S. P. Robineau of Miami successfully entered "The Swanee River" as the official state song" titled "Old Folks at Home" -- not "Swannee (sic) River"

FLORIDA MY FLORIDA - THE ORIGINAL STATE SONG
Written in 1894
by Rev Dr. C. V. Waugh, a professor of languages at the Florida Agricultural College at Lake City, the song was said by the Legislature to have "both metric and patriotic merit of the kind calculated to inspire love for home and native State." Sung to the tune of "Maryland, My Maryland" a strongly Secessionist song written by James Ryder Randall in 1861 which turned into one of the biggest hits of the Confederacy and became a State song in the 1930's.

Land of my birth, bright sunkissed land,
Florida, my Florida.
Laded by the Gulf and Ocean grand,
Florida, my Florida.

Of all the States in East or West,
Unto my heart thou art the best
Here may I live, here may I rest
Florida, my Florida.

The golden fruit the world outshines
Florida, my Florida,
Thy gardens and thy phosphate mines,
Florida, my Florida,

In country, town, or hills and dells,
Florida, my Florida,
The rhythmic chimes of the school bells
Florida, my Florida,

Will call thy children day by day
To learn to walk the patriot's way
Firmly to stand for thee for aye
Florida, my Florida.

Yield their rich store of good supply,
To still the voice of hunger's cry-
For thee we'll live, for thee we'll die
Florida, my Florida.

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Step Dance Swanee River (1932)

JUMP JIM CROW

LEARN ABOUT THE AMAZING ORIGINS OF "JIM CROW"

Learn how it became part of the language, and the name for racist laws and attitudes used to oppress blacks in the Southern United States in the 19th and 20th Centuries.


TEACH CHARACTER EDUCATION
Learn how to stop Bullies in your school. How do we teach using Song, Literature and Film?

1) Complaint Leads School to Ban "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
2) Complaint Leads School To Drop `Pick a Bale of Cotton' From School Concert
3) Peg Leg Sam Jackson A film portrait of the last Black medicine-show performer, Arthur "Peg Leg Sam" Jackson, black harmonica player, singer, and comedian who made his living "busking" on the street and performing in patent-medicine shows touring southern towns.
4) Ms. Shirley Temple sings Polly Wolly Doodle and dances with Bill "Bonjangels" Robinson on her way upstairs to bed in The Little Colonel.

Folktale and Song about John Henry the beginning of rock and roll.

Irishman Stephen Foster born in western Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania died on January 13, 1864, in Bellevue Hospital at New York City with .38 cents in his pocket. Music Deals he was signed to Columbia Records!

A SONG TO UNIFY ALL FIFTY STATES! THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND BY WOODY GUTHRIE

LIST OF STATE SONGS

Central Florida school districts pay Substitute Teachers:

  • Brevard: $62 to $110, with top pay earned by retired teachers.
  • Lake: $45 to $70, with top pay earned by those with master's degrees or higher.
  • Orange: $60 to $100, with top pay earned by those who take jobs in 32 "high-needs" schools.
  • Osceola: $71.25 to $90, with top pay earned by retired Osceola teachers.
  • Polk: $80
  • Seminole: $55 to $85, with top pay earned by retired teachers.
  • Volusia: $57.61 to $98.55, with top pay earned by retired Volusia teachers.

Leadbelly 1945

Strange Fruit Billie Holiday

 

Through each Secretary of State you can contact all fifty states to find out what your State Song is.