Is the Song of the South also fading into obscurity?
Gene Ladnier - Posted: 10.11.00

So much of our Southern history is being rewritten it is becoming difficult to distinguish simple fact from pure fiction.

Southern pride and patriotism have been classified as racism, southern music identified with arrogance, and Confederate organizations listed as hate groups.
The brave battle flag under which thousands of Southern patriots fought and suffered and died has been attacked as the ultimate symbol of aggression and injustice.
Today, any Southern politician who embraces any organization dedicated simply to the preservation of Southern culture, is automatically labeled a racist by the Yankee press, and even the unofficial national anthem of the South is quickly becoming vilified as a song of racism.

I had a French friend confide in me that when he heard the song "Dixie" playing in the movies and watched Confederate soldiers marching by with their battle flag billowing in the wind, he instantly thought of Nazi butchers goose-stepping through the streets of Paris.
Has so much anti Southern propaganda flooded overseas that we have been relegated to the role of racist butchers?

As for the name "Dixie" it has been around longer than many realize. In all likelihood it is a hybrid French/American word born along the Mississippi River, although some identify it with the old Mason/Dixon line that separated the North from the South. Either way it became a universally recognized name for the South long before the Civil War.

Should you delve deeper into history you may find that it most likely originated in New Orleans. The French dominated financial firms of New Orleans had, as one of their bank notes, a $10 bill that had in its corner the French word "Dix," or ten.
Naturally, the frontiersmen, rivermen and bayou bushwhackers of the time dubbed these notes as "Dixie’s" and the Mississippi delta region as the land of the Dixie or "Dixieland."
As for the song "Dixie," history is not clear on who actually wrote it, but the song as we know it today made its debut around 1859, although the tune is believed to have been around for generations before that debut.

What began as a minstrel show tune changed its meaning on February 18, 1861, when Jeff Davis was inaugurated as president of the Independent Confederacy.
As a small band slowly marched through the capitol of Montgomery under the direction of Herman Arnold, a German music teacher, the band struck up his version of, "I wish I was in Dixieland." The song was an overnight sensation; even Union President Abraham Lincoln loved it.

On April 8, 1865, shortly before his assassination, President Lincoln was returning on the federal steamer, the River Queen, after a tour of a Union Army Camp near Richmond Virginia. A Federal Army Band was on board and he asked the director if he knew "Dixie."

"It has always been a favorite of mine," stated Lincoln," and since it is now federal property, we have the right to enjoy it. Also, the Rebels can now be free to hear it and play it whenever they choose."

With all the wonderful American history that is associated with this great song why must our society deride a tune that has meant so much to so many for so long? Nowhere in the lyrics of this great old song do I see anything about hate, race or slavery.

The War of Northern Aggression, or the War for Southern Independence never happened because the South lost. There was the War of the Rebellion according to the Yankee victors, and history-according to Tacitus-is always written by the victors.
In the foreseeable future, will our Southern culture and heritage, and all the great songs and symbols that portray it, be banned from the memory of humankind as history is slowly rewritten? Is the sacred memory of the Sons of the South who died in search of freedom to be forever tarnished with false slogans of fascism?

Are we now slipping back into the days of "reconstruction" when; under the tyrannical and watchful eyes of the Yankee Occupation Forces, we dared not speak of Southern pride?
Are we members of the Southern press afraid to embrace our Southern heritage because we fear being labeled racist?

Not this "Rebel!"
And, I am no racist.
Under the sod and dew of the evening,
Waiting for the judgment day,
The remembered graves of the Blue,
And the forgotten graves of the Gray.