Racist Screed Or Enlightened Work? State Song Stirs Up Folks At Home

By GRETCHEN PARKER The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jan 20, 2007

•The lyrics officially adopted seven decades ago are no longer used because they're widely viewed as racist?

•The songwriter is from Pittsburgh? And never visited Florida?

•The best known line, "Way down upon the Swanee River," misspells Suwannee River, the song's sole reference to Florida?

•The new governor, wary of the racial fuss the song stirs up, axes it from his inauguration ceremony?

Serious concerns have long dogged Florida's state song, "Old Folks at Home," widely known as "Swanee River." Most recently, it was publicly abandoned by Gov. Charlie Crist, who chose a different song to mark his official induction into office this month.

A spokeswoman said he was concerned about the song's "racial implications."

The problems with the song are clear, even to those who defend it. It's a throwback from 1851, when Pennsylvania native Stephen Foster wrote it in the hopes it would be picked up by a minstrel show. Eventually, it was. It became one of the most popular songs in the world; the melody is universally recognizable.

The narrator, a slave, cries out in the chorus to "darkeys" and longs for "de old folks at home" - on his plantation. In 1935, the Florida Legislature adopted the song as its own, even though Foster never laid eyes on the Suwannee River or any other part of the state.

He used "Swanee" because it fit the rhythm of the lyric; first drafts show he first extolled the Pee Dee River of South Carolina.

It's tough to find the lyrics on any state-run Web site. Apparently only one Florida Web page, aimed at children, displays the lyrics and uses a modernized version that leaves in "plantation" but omits "darkeys." The so-called "negro dialect" also is wiped clean. "Ribber" becomes "river."

The first official record of the modernized version being used at the state capital is in 1978, when the new capitol buildings were dedicated.

But the newer versions were never recognized by lawmakers. The joint resolution that adopted "Old Folks at Home" 72 years ago declares it the official state song, "to be sung in the schools and at all other public or official gatherings."

Many See The Song As An Embarrassment

For some Floridians, the song is a shameful, painful reminder of the state's connection to the Old South.

"The truth about the matter is… more white people have come to me and complained that the language of that song is very embarrassing," said Charles Atkins, a black bluesman and Daytona Beach native who wrote the song Crist chose over the official state song.

Whitewashing the old lyrics doesn't change anything, said Atkins.

"It's like stepping in manure," he said. "It's going to always have that on its feet."

The Center for American Music at the University of Pittsburgh, which has a memorial to Foster, gives its blessing to revising Foster's lyrics. The center plans to release this year a collection of his songs, modernized to nix the loaded words. Their goal is to keep the songs alive.

Why?

This is where "Swanee River" gets complicated. "Old Folks at Home," musicologists say, is not exactly what it seems.

Bashing it as racist is a fallacy, because it's listening to an 1851 song with 2007 ears, said Kathryn Miller Haines, associate director of the Center for American Music. The song gave refined, human emotions to slaves, something that was not done in white, popular culture at that time. Foster tried to express the emotion he imagined slaves felt when their families and their ties to home were ripped apart.

Slaves, he was saying, experience the same turmoil that whites feel, Haines said.

"Foster was not a racist," she said.

The longing for home and roots hit a chord that proved universally popular, Foster biographer Ken Emerson said. Even some blacks, for a time, absorbed it into their culture. Slaves embraced it. They sang it in cotton fields in Georgia and believed it to be an African folk song.

"It speaks deeply with a sense of nostalgia about distance from home. That's one of the reasons it's been for more than a hundred years one of the most popular songs in America," Emerson said.

Just because the song stirs up a complicated stew doesn't mean it should be forgotten, he said.

"The racial complexity and ambiguity is tremendous," Emerson said. "But it's part of American history. American history is awkward and embarrassing and complex. It has racist aspects to it, and so does American history."

Still, that's a lot of explanation to give for Florida's anthem.

"When you want a state song, you don't want to hear a 10-minute lecture from a history professor or a musicologist. You just want to sing the thing," said Steven Saunders, who edited the definitive edition of Foster's complete works, hundreds of songs that include "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and "Oh! Susanna."

Efforts To Change It Have Failed

At least twice in the past 20 years there were serious efforts to replace "Old Folks at Home." In 1988, former Rep. Rick Dantzler tried it, met with resistance, and shifted his effort to adopting another song in addition to the old tune. It failed.

In 1997, former Rep. Willie Logan, of Opa Locka, tried again. Resistance came from a lawmaker, Randy Mackey, whose district included parts of the Suwannee River. Again, the effort failed.

The song gets credit as the foundation for Florida's tourism industry, as people worldwide came to look for the idyllic home Foster described on the river's banks. But just because it's part of state history doesn't mean it should represent Florida today, said Dantzler, who now works as a lawyer in Winter Haven.

There are other problems with the song, especially if you live in South Florida and don't feel connected to a tribute for a river that flows hundreds of miles away, through North Florida. It doesn't say much about the state, because Foster never saw it.

Atkins, who teaches and runs a blues lab at Florida State University, thinks his "Florida's Song" is a good replacement. Even before Crist's inauguration, it was played at the Capitol and at state museums.

He wrote it about 15 years ago, when Ray Charles was inducted into the Florida Hall of Fame. Atkins heard Charles tell a reporter he would sing about Florida, his childhood home and birthplace of his career, if someone would give him a song.

Atkins set to writing a patriotic song for the state he loved and the artist he had admired for a lifetime.

About a year before Charles' death in 2004, the two musicians were in a studio together in Los Angeles. Atkins finally had a chance to play "Florida's Song" for his idol.

Charles, Atkins said, was thrilled. He asked to hear it again and joined Atkins at the piano. Together, two black men with strong Florida connections played and sang about the state's flowers and rivers, the sunshine and the sea.

Researcher Catherine Hammer contributed to this report. Reporter Gretchen Parker can be reached at gparker@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7562.

Florida's Song

By Charles Atkins

On the southern coast of North America

Just as far to the South as you can go

Under the sun where mighty oceans run

Is a land that I shall always know

Florida, Oh Florida

Your flowers grow your rivers roll along

When all the hopes and dreams are gone

Your blessings will live on

Florida, you're my home sweet home

On the south most tip of North America

Is where begins my fondest memories

Of a land that I know

A place where I must go

And claim for me my liberty

Oh Florida, oh Florida

Where children grow and people all stand strong

When all the hopes and dreams are gone

Your blessings will live on

Florida you're my home sweet home

When all the hopes and dreams are gone

Your blessings will live on

Florida you are my home sweet home

My home sweet home

Source: Charles Atkins

Old Folks at Home"

By Stephen Foster

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,

Ebry where I roam,

Oh! darkeys how my heart grows weary,

Far from de old folks at home.

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.

One little hut among de bushes,

One dat I love,

Still sadly to my mem'ry rushes,

No matter where I rove

When will I see de bees a humming

All round de comb?

When will I hear de banjo tumming

Down in my good old home?

Source: Center for American Music, Stephen Foster Memorial, University of Pittsburgh

State Song Changes/Controversies

Mississippi

Song: "Go Mississippi"

Year Adopted: 1962

Why: Song is associated with a segregationist governor, Ross Barnett, who first used it for his campaign in 1959.

Result: Multiple attempts to change the song have been unsuccessful.

Virginia

Song: "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia"

Year Adopted: 1940

Why: Lyrics contain racist terms such as "darkey," "massa" and "missis."

Result: After multiple attempts over the years to change the lyrics or get rid of it entirely, lawmakers finally retired the song in 1997.

Maryland

Song: "Maryland, My Maryland"

Year Adopted: 1939

Why: Sung to the tune of "O Tannenbaum," it refers to Abraham Lincoln as a "despot" and the Civil War Union troops as "northern scum."

Result: Despite many attempts to change it, it remains the state song.

Connecticut

Song: "Yankee Doodle"

Year Adopted: 1978

Why: Song is not specifically about Connecticut, and the lyrics are said to be sexist and designed to poke fun at colonists. The lyrics were changed before adoption from "with the girls be handy" to "with the folks be handy."

Result: State song is still "Yankee Doodle."

Research by CATHERINE HAMMER