Negro Students Call "Dixie" Offensive - - LDF Defends Their Right to Protest

Press Release
November 14, 1968

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Singing of "Dixie" Offensive to Negroes in Jonesboro, Ark. High School - LDF Defends Right of Students to Protest

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- Press Releases
Creator
- LDF
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Identifier
- a5f66a1c-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 5. Negro Students Call "Dixie" Offensive - - LDF Defends Their Right to Protest, 1968. a5f66a1c-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/1a5f8421-c458-4d0d-b9ac-68559e751bf9/negro-students-call-dixie-offensive-ldf-defends-their-right-to-protest. Accessed November 23, 2025.

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    174 

Fs 

aes Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel 
egal fefense und Jack Greenberg 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ic relations 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr. 

10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 f NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

NEGRO STUDENTS CALL "DIXIE" OFFENSIVE 

LDF DEFENDS THEIR RIGHT TO PROTEST 

JONESBORO, ARKANSAS--Negro high school students who protested 

against the singing of the sentimental confederate tune "Dixie" 

today brought suit against the Jonesboro High School principal 

and the superintendent.of schools, 

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. cooperating 

attorney John Walker of this city filed the suit today in the 

U.S. District Court, Eastern Division. 

Attorney Walker is asking the court to prevent further harass- 

ment of the students and to enjoin the school officials from 

preventing peaceful protest. 

The students received five-day suspensions for their protest 

against "Dixie." 

They said the tune is "humiliating and indicative of the past 

when Negroes were considered property." 

The students began their protest after the confederate song 

had been sung at a pep rally during the start of the football 

season. 

They voiced their distaste to the principal who in turn 

appointed an eight-teacher committee to decide whether the song 

should be eliminated from the school repertoire. 

The committee decided the song should be eliminated. 

However, when white parents learned ahout the committee's 

decision they organized their own protest against "Dixie" being 

dropped, 

The principal retracted the committee's decision and put the 

question to the 1,100 students, of which 100 are Negroes. 

White students favored keeping the song. 

The Negro students decided they would, from then on, walk out | 

whenever "Dixie" was played. 

It was customary to play "Dixie" when the pep rallies ended. 

But at the next rally, according to attorney Walker, this 

practice was changed. 

The minute the Negro students entered the auditorium the band 

struck up the tune. 

The students walked out but were followed by the principal, the 

school superintendent and a plain clothes policeman. 

Their attorney said they were asked to sign their names on a 

sheet of paper and were then told that their grades would be re- 

duced by 15% and that they were suspended for five days. 

=30= 

| NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is 

. a separate and distinct organization from the NAACP, Its correct 

designation is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. which 

is shortened to LDF. 

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Negro Students Call "Dixie" Offensive - - LDF Defends Their Right to Protest

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