Parents, NAACP criticize Detroit-area middle school's use of song

AP ^ | Novembver 14, 2005

[Watershed]

BERKLEY, Mich. (AP) — A black parent and the NAACP are criticizing a middle school's choice to perform a song that they say glorifies slavery.

The song, "Pick a Bale of Cotton," is on the folk music choir program Wednesday at predominantly white Anderson Middle School in the Berkley School District.

The song's lyrics include, "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. Gotta jump down, turn around, Oh Lordie, pick a bale a day."

Greg Montgomery said he complained to school officials, and when he was dissatisfied with their response, decided to pull his 11-year-old daughter China from singing.

"It's mind-boggling that people don't understand sensitive issues," he told The Detroit News.

China said: "They were bringing back the memories of how African-Americans picked cotton, and it wasn't a good memory. It was disrespectful to African-Americans."

Berkley schools spokeswoman Gwen Ahern said district officials would consider the song's origin and decide whether to leave it in the concert program. She also defended the choice.

"We used to sing that song when I was in school during the '50s," she said. "It's like a Southern type of folk song. I remember it being perky. It was more of a song that people just sang for fun."

[Junior_G]

China said: "They were bringing back the memories of how African-Americans picked cotton, and it wasn't a good memory. It was disrespectful to African-Americans."

Sorry lady, but neither you nor anybody else alive has memories of that.

[Great Caesars Ghost]

Tote that barge, lift dem bales, white man come gon' lan' in jail, but that ol' man river, he jes' keeps rollin' he jes' keep rollin' alooooooong.

[latina4dubya]

i just taught my "kindergarten" students in our co-op this song (we homeschool)... they also learned, "Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care," "Polly Wolly Doodle All Day," and "This Ol' Hammer Killed John Henry."

A terrific version of the story about John Henry was done by Julius Lester... he is fantastic... i highly recommend his book about John Henry... it's a picture book for children... go to his website by Googling his name... i happen to have the audio version where Julius Lester himself is telling the story... i'm sure the NAACP would be offended, as he uses "Uncle Remus" speak...

[Great Caesars Ghost]

My uncle actually did die young working in a coal mine. He was not a very nice man, GRHS. The guys on his shift later said nobody thought he'd live long enough to die of natural causes.

[SlowBoat407]

Greg Montgomery said he complained to school officials, and when he was dissatisfied with their response, decided to pull his 11-year-old daughter China from singing.

So he's exploiting the name of an entire nation so his child can have a fashionable, pretentious name?

[ohioman]

You obviously know nothing of the history of Cotton or of the South. Hell, I remember mumbling "Oh Lord Pick a Bale of Cotton" while picking cotton in the Alabama sun many years ago. The song doesn't have a damn thing to do with race.

[thompsonsjkc]

The story has changed, the school caved, song pulled.

[Watershed]

Why does that not surprise me?

[Old Professer]

I heard the boll weevil had been eradicated in Detroit, guess I must have got it wrong.

[zook]

"You obviously know nothing of the history of Cotton or of the South."

Take a hike, Braniac."

[zook]

Good.

[Clemenza]

"Oh the sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home this summer...and the DARKIES ARE GAY!!!"

[Clemenza]

We sang "Dixie" in my NYC-area elementary school.

[Ohioan]

The total absurdity of trashing American Negro folk culture, because the agitators in the race, today, have an agenda, should be obvious. The song mentioned was not some White expression of approval of anything. It is as much a Negro folk song as are the Negro spirituals, that all races used to sing in America as part of a common culture.

People need to be reminded that the NAACP was not created by American Negroes but by White Socialists with an agenda. It has never represented anything that deviated from that confrontational agenda. (See Creating Hate In America Today.)

Respect in America starts when everyone is both free to honor their own roots, and respects other people's roots. It is obvious that here, the NAACP does not respect the roots of the people they claim--and that is all it is--to represent.

William Flax

P.S. Yes, in case you guessed, I have always liked the song. And, if someone disagrees, tell me how it is one whit less respectful of anyone than such White culture songs as Tennessee Ernie Ford's "16 Tons." (Indeed, the latter has more of an antagonistic message, by far, than does the subject song.)

[therut]

My momma picked cotton and she was WHITE. I have the original cotton picking bags. "When those cotton bowels get a rotten you can't pick very much cotton . In those ole cotton fields back home. It was down in Louisiana just about a mile from Texarkana in them ole cotton fields back home." Lyerics to a song my momma taught me. Do I feel offended NO. How about the fact there were some boot legging going on also being a sharecropper. Do I feel offended and opressed NO.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Perhaps a re-read of some ancient classics will make the point to you as to what the "basics" once were. Plato believed music to be as important as any subject in the proper training of men and was crucial for the development of the soul. I feel the same way about aesthetics of a wider sort.

While it is easy to exaggerate the failings of modern education that is the easy way out and, like most conventional wisdom, is mainly just exaggerations. Schools today are not just providing course work in mundane or absurd subjects but have mathematics courses far more advanced than those of my day. Plus advance chemistry, statistics, several foreign languages etc.

Those students who cannot read are the progeny of destroyed families or families which never really formed.
While many of them cannot read well or do math they can produce fine art and this connects them to their school in ways you or I find difficult to relate to. When there is nothing they can relate to they often because chronic troublemakers or drop out. That affects all of us in several ways all bad.

[Rakkasan1]

weak....
didn't even make the top victims list for 2005
http://www.uexpress.com/johnleo/

[billbears]

Plato believed music to be as important as any subject in the proper training of men and was crucial for the development of the soul. I feel the same way about aesthetics of a wider sort.

I have no doubt about that and can even agree with it. However, let's look at what was once considered public education and then what's considered public education these days. Want to take a child from 2000 whose been spoonfed culture through singing, tax payer sponsored extracurricular activities, etc. (therefore less time in the classroom) vs. a child of the late 1800s that actually learned the classics through a strong focus on the basics?

Schools today are not just providing course work in mundane or absurd subjects but have mathematics courses far more advanced than those of my day. Plus advance chemistry, statistics, several foreign languages etc.

We had calculus 20 years ago, same with AP Physics, Chemistry, and statistics. I took German as my foreign language in high school (only because I couldn't grasp French). Mysteriously my entire class of 500 graduated on time with no one left behind and with no one spending time in elementary school choirs over the years.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Greg Montgomery, whose daughter China sings in the choir, asked that the song be removed from the program last week.

Will Mr. Montgomery be changing his surname as well as his daughter's? Why not have the courage of your convictions and go all the way and reject the slave name your family has been carrying all these years?
Surely, his ancestors from Africa weren't named Montgomery. Or did they emmigrate from Scotland?

[DoughtyOne]

My favorite of that type of song is "ole Man River". It's pace and words leave me with the understanding of the never ending hard work and the futile outlook for the future. How anyone could object to these types of songs being sung in remembrance is beyond me.