*Songs To While Away The Struggle -Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam"-Make Sure To See The Netflix Documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Nina Simone performing her "Mississippi Goddam. Thanks, Nina.

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

Markin comment:

50 years later and even the mere mention of Mississippi puts me directly in mind of Nina Simone's no-nonsense song about the struggle down South in the early part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Thanks, Nina.

Mississippi Goddam Lyrics
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it for now! see ya' later

*The "High Priestess Of Soul"- A Nina Simone Biography- A Guest Review-Make Sure To See The Netflix Documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?

Click on the headline to link to a "The Boston Sunday Globe", book review, dated February 21, 2010, reviewing Nadine Cohodas's "Princess Noire", the life and times of the great singer Nina Simone.

February Is Black History Month

Markin comment:

Nobody familiar with the work done in this space needs to be reminded that singer Nina Simone stands very high in my book, if for nothing else than her righteous song ,"Mississippi Goddam", that caused her some political and professional trouble. Hats off.

Mississippi Goddam Lyrics
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it for now! see ya' later

For Mississippi., an angst-filled Civil War anniversary-Reply-Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Nina Simone performing her "Mississippi Goddam. Thanks, Nina.

For Miss., an angst-filled Civil War anniversary

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, AP

JACKSON, Miss. — Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War can be an angst-filled task in Mississippi, with its long history of racial strife and a state flag that still bears the Confederate battle emblem.

Well-intentioned Mississippians who work for racial reconciliation say slavery was morally indefensible. Still, some speak in hushed tones as they confess a certain admiration for the valor of Confederate troops who fought for what was, to them, the hallowed ground of home and country.

"Mississippi has such a troubled past that a lot of people are very sensitive about commemorating or recognizing or remembering the Civil War because it has such an unpleasant reference for African-Americans," said David Sansing, who is white and a professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi.

"Many Mississippians are reluctant to go back there because they don't want to remind themselves or the African-American people about our sordid past," said Sansing. "But it is our past."

Black Mississippians express pride that some ancestors were Union soldiers who fought to end slavery, though it took more than a century for the U.S. to dismantle state-sanctioned segregation and guarantee voting rights.

Sansing is among dignitaries traveling to Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Md., this weekend to dedicate a blue-gray granite marker commemorating the 11th Mississippi Infantry, which saw 119 members killed, wounded or missing in battle there on Sept. 16-17, 1862. The infantry had almost 1,000 soldiers, including a unit of University of Mississippi students known as the University Greys.

Among the speakers set to dedicate the monument Sunday is Bertram Hayes-Davis, great-great grandson of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. He was recently hired as executive director of Beauvoir, the white-columned Biloxi, Miss., mansion that was the final home of his ancestor, a Mississippi native.

The state is taking a decidedly low-key and scholarly approach to commemorating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

Re-enactments have taken place at battlefields near Tupelo and are planned soon near Iuka. Lectures, concerts and other gatherings are scheduled over the next several months. Several events are expected in 2013 to mark the 1863 siege of Vicksburg, which gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.

Mississippi is the last state with a flag that includes the Confederate battle emblem, a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. The symbol has been on the state flag since 1894. In a 2001 statewide election, voters decided nearly 2-to-1 to keep it, despite arguments it was racially divisive and tarnishing the state's image.

With a population that's 38 percent black, Mississippi has elected hundreds of black public officials in the past four decades — a change directly linked to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Many people, across racial lines, say it's important that Civil War history commemorations not turn into celebrations of a lost cause.

Derrick Johnson, state president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said generations have been taught a "revisionist history" of the Civil War that ignores or downplays the impact of slavery. He said he wants a full discussion of the war.

"In mixed racial company, people don't want to address race and there is truly an avoidance of conversation when it relates to history and race," Johnson said. "Civil War, pre-Civil War, Reconstruction, Redemption, segregation — nobody wants to have candid conversations about how the past affects the public policy of this state and how people of different races interact with one another in this state."

On Dec. 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede. Mississippi moved next on Jan. 9, 1861, with a secession declaration stating, in part: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world."

Rick Martin is chief of operations for the Vicksburg National Military Park, a 1,800-acre battlefield that sprawls through the city's hills and bluffs. The park attracts about 800,000 people a year from around the world, and Martin said their most common questions are "Why did the war start?" and "How could this happen?"

"Depending on what part of the country you're from ... people have been brought up different ways to understand why the Civil War was fought," Martin said. "When it comes down to it, you can boil it all down to slavery. That is the root cause of the Civil War."

Robert M. Walker, a historian who became Vicksburg's first black mayor in the late 1980s, was instrumental in pushing the park to install a monument that honors all black people — free and slave — who participated in military action in Vicksburg during the Civil War. The monument was added in 2003.

Black soldiers fought for the Union in the Battle of Milliken's Bend, La., on June 7, 1863, just up the Mississippi River from Vicksburg. The site was a supply and communication post for the Union as it worked to conquer Vicksburg during a siege that lasted from May 22, 1863, until the Confederates surrendered on July 4.

"One thing I'm particularly proud of is that black men who were poorly or sometimes not trained at all took up arms to fight for their own freedom and the freedom of their loved ones," Walker said. "The conventional belief was that they were not battle worthy, that they wouldn't fight."

After the Battle of Milliken's Bend, the black soldiers won praise from military officers.

"These folks were genuine, were real freedom fighters," Walker said.

Beauvoir, owned by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, honors Davis' service as Confederate president. The home was nearly wiped away by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Most of the restoration is finished, and Hayes-Davis said several events will mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. This fall, Beauvoir is reopening its presidential library.

Hayes-Davis doesn't apologize for his ancestor and doesn't shy away from discussing an era that divided a nation and killed an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 people.

"History is one of the most important things we have in our country and we need to make sure we understand it, that we know all the reasons things occurred," said Hayes-Davis, who grew up in Colorado Springs, Colo. "I don't think it's difficult at all to talk about the War Between the States."
____

Markin comment:
50 years later and even the mere mention of Mississippi puts me directly in mind of Nina Simone's no-nonsense song about the struggle down South in the early part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Thanks, Nina.

Mississippi Goddam Lyrics
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it for now! see ya' later

February Is Black History Month- Hats Off To The Heroes Of The Civil Rights Movement

Februray Is Black History Month

Hats Off To Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement

DVD Review

Free at Last: Civil Rights Heroes, film documentary, Image Entertainment, 2005

Every major (and most minor) progressive social struggle in America from the struggle for independence from Great Britain through to the struggle for slavery abolition up to the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality today has had more than its share of heroes and martyrs. The purpose of the documentary under review, Free At Last: Civil Rights Heroes, rightly, highlights some of those lesser known heroes and martyrs from the struggle for black civil rights that came to national prominence in the 1950s and 1960s (although arguably that conscious struggle against the manifestations of Jim Crow goes back to the 1930s and before).

Although, in the end, the question of black equality had to be addressed (and still has to be addressed) nationally the thrust of the black civil rights movement that is featured in this film is the struggle for something like a democratic revolution by blacks and their supporters in the police state-like American South. That barbaric de jure and de facto Jim Crow system officially, as a matter state and social policy, held blacks in second class citizenship (or lower). The struggle to overcome that ingrained (and profitable, profitable for whites of almost all social strata) was almost, of necessity, going to create more than it share of heroes and martyrs.

The case of fourteen year old Chicago resident Emmett Till and his horrible murder at the hands of white marauders in Mississippi in 1955, the first of the three separate segments that make up the film graphically, highlights the problem. For the mere allegation of “whistling at a white woman while black” (if that allegation had any substance) young Emmett was brutally mangled and thrown into the local river. When his mother, righteously, made a cause out of this bestial murder all hell broke loose, at least on the surface. And the case galvanized blacks and whites nationally, alerting many for the first time to the hard fact that something was desperately wrong down in Mississippi (and not just there). But justice, Mississippi justice, to paraphrase poet Langston Hughes, is justice deferred. As detailed in almost all the cases highlighted in the film those directly responsible for the actions against the civil rights workers were either never brought to justice or only brought after something like a long drawn out legal civil war. No one should forget that aspect of the struggle either.

The other cases highlighted from the assassinated Medgar Evers, to the four Birmingham girls murdered in their church when it was bombed, to the three civil rights workers slain in Philadelphia, Mississippi that drew nation-wide attention, to slain white civil rights workers Viola Liuzzo and Reverend James Reeb, murdered for “being white while working for black civil rights” exhibit those same kinds of sickening results as in the Till case. Let me put it this way after viewing the film footage here, especially Bull Connor’s attack dogs being let loose on civil rights demonstrators in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama that was one of the first visual images that drove me into the civil rights struggle, I still wanted to throw something at the screen. And you wonder why fifty or so years later I still say Mississippi (or fill in your preferred state) goddam. Kudos here.

*Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Free At Last: Civil Rights Heroes"- Hats Off To The Lesser Known Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement

Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip on Emmett Till.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

*******

DVD Review

Free at Last: Civil Rights Heroes, film documentary, Image Entertainment, 2005

Every major (and most minor) progressive social struggle in America from the struggle for independence from Great Britain through to the struggle for slavery abolition up to the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality today has had more than its share of heroes and martyrs. The purpose of the documentary under review, Free At Last: Civil Rights Heroes, rightly, highlights some of those lesser known heroes and martyrs from the struggle for black civil rights that came to national prominence in the1950s and 1960s (although, arguably, that struggle goes back to the 1930s and before).

Although, in the end the question of black equality had to be addressed (and still has to be addressed) nationally the thrust of the black civil rights movement that is featured in this film is the struggle for something like a democratic revolution by blacks and their supporters in the police state-like American South in place since post-Civil War times. That barbaric de jure and de facto Jim Crow system officially, as a matter state and social policy, held blacks in second class citizenship (or lower). The struggle to overcome that ingrained (and profitable, profitable for whites of almost all social strata) was almost, of necessity, going to create more than it share of heroes and martyrs.

The case of fourteen year old Chicago resident Emmett Till and his horrible murder at the hands of white marauders in Mississippi in 1955, the first of the three separate segments that make up the film graphically highlights the problem. For the mere allegation of “whistling at a white woman while black” (if that allegation had any substance) young Emmett was brutally mangled and thrown into the local river. When his mother, righteously, made a cause out of this bestial murder all hell broke loose, at least on the surface. And the case galvanized blacks and whites nationally, alerting many for the first time to the hard fact that something was desperately wrong down in Mississippi (and not just there). But justice, Mississippi justice, to paraphrase poet Langston Hughes, is justice deferred. As detailed in almost all the cases highlighted in the film those directly responsible for the actions against the civil rights workers were either never brought to justice or only after something like a long drawn out legal civil war. No one should forget that aspect of the struggle either.

The other cases highlighted from the assassinated Medgar Evers to the four Birmingham girls murdered in their church when it was bombed to the three civil rights workers slain in Philadelphia, Mississippi that drew nation-wide attention to slain white civil rights workers Viola Liuzzo and Reverend James Reeb, murdered for “being white while working for black civil rights” exhibit those same kinds of sickening results. Let me put it this way after viewing the film footage here, especially Bull Connor’s attack dogs being let loose on civil rights demonstrators in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama that was one of the first visual images that drove me into the civil rights struggle, I still wanted to throw something at the screen. And you wonder why fifty or so years later I still say Mississippi (or fill in your preferred state) goddam. Kudos here.

***Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Phil Och's "Here's To The State Of Mississippi"-Mississippi Goddam, Once Again

Click on the title to link to YouTube to hear the above-mentioned Phil Ochs song.

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

***********

Markin comment:

This is a continuation of entries for folksinger/songwriter Phil Och's who back in the early 1960s stood right up there with Bob Dylan in the protest songwriting category. The entries on this date testify to that. However, early on I sensed something special about Dylan and never really warmed up to Ochs. His singing style did not "move" me and that counted for a lot in those days. The rest just turned on preference.

********

Here's to the State of Mississippi Lyrics

G Em D
Here's to the state of Mississippi,
G F
For Underheath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
G F
If you drag her muddy river, nameless bodies you will find.
G F
whoa the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes,
G Em Am D
the calender is lyin' when it reads the present time.
G Em C G
Whoa here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
G Em D G
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of!

Here's to the people of Mississippi
Who say the folks up north, they just don't understand
And they tremble in their shadows at the thunder of the Klan
The sweating of their souls can't wash the blood from off their hands
They smile and shrug their shoulders at the murder of a man
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

Here's to the schools of Mississippi
Where they're teaching all the children that they don't have to care
All of rudiments of hatred are present everywhere
And every single classroom is a factory of despair
There's nobody learning such a foreign word as fair
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

Here's to the cops of Mississippi
They're chewing their tobacco as they lock the prison door
Their bellies bounce inside them as they knock you to the floor
No they don't like taking prisoners in their private little war
Behind their broken badges there are murderers and more
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

And, here's to the judges of Mississippi
Who wear the robe of honor as they crawl into the court
They're guarding all the bastions with their phony legal fort
Oh, justice is a stranger when the prisoners report
When the black man stands accused the trial is always short
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the government of Mississippi
In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down
And criminals are posing as the mayors of the towns
They're hoping that no one sees the sights and hears the sounds
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the laws of Mississippi
Congressmen will gather in a circus of delay
While the Constitution is drowning in an ocean of decay
Unwed mothers should be sterilized, I've even heard them say
Yes, corruption can be classic in the Mississippi way
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the churches of Mississippi
Where the cross, once made of silver, now is caked with rust
And the Sunday morning sermons pander to their lust
The fallen face of Jesus is choking in the dust
Heaven only knows in which God they can trust
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of

*From "The Rag Blog" -Amy Goodman : In Praise of Lena Horne

Click on the headline to link to a "The Rag Blog" entry-Amy Goodman : In Praise of Lena Horne.

Markin comment:

I have made my own comments about Lena Horne elsewhere in this space. But the point that Lena made about the studios cutting her out of films shown in the South makes me want to scream one more time- Mississippi Goddam.

*The Jackson State Killings, 1970- Never Forget, Never Forgive- Kent State Too

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the Jackson State (Mississippi) killing of two students , and injuring of several others.


Markin comment:

Hey, am I the only one, except Bob Feldman, who has linked the Kent State and Jackson State student killings by the government together today as we mark the fortieth anniversary of those events. It was the same struggle by us and the same rationale by those in power. Remember all students (and others) were put on notice that the American government, federal and local, had you in their cross hairs if you decided to get uppity. Etch that in your brains for future reference.

*The Modern Southern Literary View Of The American Civil War Period- William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!"

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the American novelist, William Faulkner.

Book Review

Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner, The Modern Library, New York, 1936

I am here to tell you that not every great book that describes the human struggle as we emerged from the mud has to be written from a leftist progressive political perspective, although usually it helps. The novelist, self-proclaimed white racial purist, and Mississippi partisan, William Faulkner, with this very complicated and somewhat rambling novel placed himself front and center in the pantheon of American literary figures who have tried to confront the daunting task of making great literature out of the slavery-driven plantation society of the ante bellum South and of that same locale in the period of defeat after the Civil War. One does not have to sign up for membership in the William Faulkner political fan club to realize that he has created something that speaks to that very contradictory, and at times incomprehensible, human drive to succeed as it has evolved thus far. He does not pull his punches or hold back on the grizzly picture that he paints.

Let me explain that last sentence. I was put on the trail of Faulkner this time, having previously reviewed his “Sanctuary” in this space, by reading and reviewing a book titled “The Unwritten War” by Daniel Aaron. Aaron’s major thesis is that the social, political and military dimensions of the American Civil experience, for both sides, were so traumatic and overwhelming that it took a figure removed in time, like Faulkner, to have a realistic shot at writing the “great American Civil War novel”. Aaron runs through the litany of great American literary figures that did, or did not, try to create such a work in the immediate post-war period and came up dry until the emergence of Faulkner (and, possibly, the “Agrarians” like Robert Penn Warren). One can agree or disagree with Professor Aaron's thesis but it hard to argue, at an artistic level, that Faulkner’s work here, especially the portrait of the central character, Thomas Sutpen, as he emerges from the descriptions of several fellow townspeople, including characters from other Faulkner novels, of the mythical Jefferson, Mississippi is not a serious candidate for that honor.

And what do we have here in the four hundred or so pages of this novel. A description of the intricate web of the roots of one branch of the slavery economy in the French West Indies as it connects to the then (1830’s) virgin Mississippi lands suitable for plantation creation. The trials and tribulations of two varieties of “poor white trash” (Sutpen, and later his overseer). The Civil War as refracted though small town Southern life. Miscegenation. Lust. Incest. Murder, Almost murder. Wannabe murder. Abortion. Southern gentility. Not so gentile Southern life. Ghosts, real and imagined. Fear of going forward. Fear of going back. Hatred of the North. Hatred of the South. Carpetbaggers. Scalawags. Almost every social and human experience, except any serious description of the hated n----r in post-Civil War society, and except as monsters. And that is only a start. So here is the “real deal”. Goddam, William Faulkner can write a hell of a novel. Nevertheless, after reading this novel, I will stick with the lyrics in Nina Simone’s old 1960’s Civil Rights-inspired song- “Mississippi, Goddam"


"Mississippi Goddam"- Nina Simone- 1963

The name of this tune is Mississippi goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabamas gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about mississippi goddam

Alabamas gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about mississippi goddam

Cant you see it
Cant you feel it
Its all in the air
I cant stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabamas gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about mississippi goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasnt been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every days gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I dont belong here
I dont belong there
Ive even stopped believing in prayer

Dont tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
Ive been there so I know
They keep on saying go slow!

But thats just the trouble
Do it slow
Washing the windows
Do it slow
Picking the cotton
Do it slow
Youre just plain rotten
Do it slow
Youre too damn lazy
Do it slow
The thinkings crazy
Do it slow
Where am I going
What am I doing
I dont know
I dont know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about mississippi goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin didnt we

Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say its a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And youd stop calling me sister sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
Youre all gonna die and die like flies
I dont trust you any more
You keep on saying go slow!
Go slow!

But thats just the trouble
Do it slow
Desegregation
Do it slow
Mass participation
Do it slow
Reunification
Do it slow
Do things gradually
Do it slow
But bring more tragedy
Do it slow
Why dont you see it
Why dont you feel it
I dont know
I dont know

You dont have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about mississippi
Everybody knows about alabama
Everybody knows about mississippi goddam

Thats it!

***From The Black Liberation Struggle Archives-The Murder Of Emmett Till- Once Again, "Mississippi Goddam", No, "Double Goddam"- A Film Review

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for Emmett Till, whose murder made him a young, catalytic figure in the black civil rights movement of the 1950s. As one of the interviewees in this documentary noted with Till's brutal murder, not only were black men under the gun, North and South, but black children as well.

DVD REVIEW

The Untold Story Of Emmett Louis Till, Titlemark Productions, 2005


Earlier this year, in February, as part of honoring various figures for Black History Month, I reviewed a 2003 PBS Productions film documentary on the case of young civil rights figure, Emmett Till. The comments that I made there can, for the most part, stand here as well in this 2005 shorter documentary that reflected the stir in the black and progressive community over the reopening of Till case by the United States Attorney-General’s office. It also reflects the passing of Emmett’s mother in 2003, without having seen justice done for her son after a life time of effort. As I point out at the bottom of this post, real justice for Emmett awaits a socialist society, a society fit for what would have been his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. For now though, as I point out in the headline, in the case of Emmett Till- “Mississippi Goddam, Double Goddam”.

******

“This film is a long overdue appreciation of the life the martyred civil rights figure, fourteen year old Chicago resident Emmett Till, down in deeply segregated Mississippi in 1955 at the hands of at least two white men while visiting relatives. Emmett’s crime- “eyeballing”, or whistling, or some such at a white woman while black. Sounds familiar from other, later contexts, right? (Like today blacks being stopped in white neighborhoods, on the roads by white police, etc.) For that childish indiscretion, however, Emmett paid with his young life. That these men, his later self-proclaimed killers were “white trash”, and considered as such by ‘gentile’ Southern society nevertheless insured that they would not suffer for their crimes. At least not under the Mississippi-style ‘justice’ of the times. They were white. And white was right. Case closed.

This documentary is also is a tribute, a much warranted tribute, to Emmett’s mother, the now deceased Mame Till, whose interview clips go a long way to understanding the nature of the case and her lifelong search for justice for her son- somewhere. As pointed out near the end of the film that event never really occurred in her lifetime or the lifetimes of Emmett’s killers. Along the way the film details the why of that statement; the murder is graphically laid out, the ‘justice’ system in Mississippi is laid bare. The reaction of blacks in Chicago at Emmett’s funeral and later at the verdict, as well as those in the South who were just starting to organize for their rights, had a galvanizing effect. As one of the journalist interviewees noted, Emmett’s case highlighted that blacks were under attack, knew they were in a life and death struggle, and had better start doing something about it. Moreover, this case provided the first solid evidence to the North, blacks and whites alike, that something was desperately wrong with the justice system in the Jim Crow South.

The beginnings of my personal awareness of the central role of the black liberation struggle in any fight for fundamental change in America did not stem from the Till tragedy but rather a little latter from the attempts to integrate the schools of Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. This film and many of the interviewees (journalists, an ex-Governor of Mississippi, field hands who witnessed various aspects of Till’s abduction and/or the cover up of the murder, Southern white liberals, etc.) point to the Till case as the tip of the iceberg that exploded soon after in the famous Rosa Parks bus incident in Montgomery, Alabama. No matter where you trace the beginnings of the modern civil right movement from though, in Emmett Till’s case there is only conclusion- Nina Simone said it best in her song- “Mississippi Goddam”. ’’

Here are the lyrics to Nina Simone's poignant and appropriate "Mississippi Goddam"

Mississippi Goddam
(1963) Nina Simone
The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it!

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Bob Dylan's "Only A Pawn In Their Game"-In Honor Of Slain Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Bob Dylan performing "Only A Pawn In Their Game" at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963.

February Is Black History Month

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

Only A Pawn In Their Game

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood.
A finger fired the trigger to his name.
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game.

A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,
And the marshals and cops get the same,
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks,
And the hoof beats pound in his brain.
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught.
They lowered him down as a king.
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Bob Dylan's "Oxford Town"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Bob Dylan performing "Oxford Town".

February Is Black History Month

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

Oxford Town

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town

He went down to Oxford Town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford Town

Oxford Town around the bend
He come in to the door, he couldn't get in
All because of the color of his skin
What do you think about that, my frien'?

Me and my gal, my gal's son
We got met with a tear gas bomb
I don't even know why we come
Goin' back where we come from

Oxford Town in the afternoon
Ev'rybody singin' a sorrowful tune
Two men died 'neath the Mississippi moon
Somebody better investigate soon

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

The Murder Of Emmett Till- Once Again, "Mississippi Goddam"

Click on the title to link to a PBS Webpage on the documentary, "The Murder Of Emmett Till".

DVD REVIEW

February Is Black History Month

The Murder Of Emmett Till, PBS Productions, 2003

This PBS production is a long overdue appreciation of the life the martyred civil rights figure, fourteen year old Chicago resident Emmett Till, down in deeply segregated Mississippi in 1955 at the hands of at least two white men while visiting relatives. Emmett’s crime- “eyeballing”, or whistling, or some such at a white woman while black. Sounds familiar from other later contexts, right (like today blacks being stopped in white neighborhoods, on the roads by white police, etc.)? For that childish indiscretion, however, Emmett paid with his young life. That these men, his later self-proclaimed killers were “white trash”, and considered as such by ‘gentile’ Southern society nevertheless insured that they would not suffer for their crimes. At least not under the Mississippi-style ‘justice’ of the times. They were white. And white was right. Case closed.

This documentary is also is a tribute, a much warranted tribute, to Emmett’s mother, the now deceased Mame Till, whose interview clips go a long way to understanding the nature of the case and her lifelong search for justice for her son- somewhere. As pointed out near the end of the film that never really occurred in her lifetime or the lifetimes of Emmett’s killers. Along the way the film details the why of that statement; the murder is graphically laid out, the ‘justice’ system in Mississippi is laid bare. The reaction of blacks in Chicago at Emmett’s funeral and later at the verdict, as well as those in the South who were just starting to organize for their rights, had a galvanizing effect. As one of the journalist interviewees noted, Emmett’s case highlighted that blacks were under attack, knew they were in a life and death struggle and had better start doing something about it. Moreover, this case provided the first solid evidence to the North, blacks and whites alike, that something was desperately wrong with the justice system in the Jim Crow South.

The beginnings of my personal awareness of the central role of the black liberation struggle in any fight for fundamental change in America did not stem from the Till tragedy but rather a little latter from the attempts to integrate the schools of Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. This film and many of the interviewees (journalists, an ex-Governor of Mississippi, field hands who witnessed various aspects of Till’s abduction and/or the cover up of the murder, Southern white liberals, etc.) point to the Till case as the tip of the iceberg that exploded soon after in the famous Rosa Parks bus incident in Montgomery, Alabama. No matter where you trace the beginnings of the modern civil right movement from though, in Emmett Till’s case there is only conclusion- Nina Simone said it best in her song- “Mississippi Goddam”.


Here are the lyrics to Nina Simone's poignant and appropriate "Mississippi Goddam"


Mississippi Goddam
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it!

***Poet's Corner- Bob Dylan's "The Death Of Emmett Till"

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of a performance of Bob Dylan's "Death Of Emmet Till".

February Is Black History Month

THE DEATH OF EMMETT TILL

Words and Music by Bob Dylan
1963, 1968 Warner Bros. Inc
Renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.