Monuments, Narratives, and "My Old Kentucky Home" Teresa Reed, Ph.D., Dean School of Music University of Louisville July 2020 In 1923, a bill was introduced in Congress on behalf of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to erect in the nation's capital a statue honoring the countless southern slave "Mammies" who had spent their lives in faithful service to the households of their white masters. Supporters of the monument favored a design for the sculpture which pictured a black woman nursing a white infant at her breast. The Senate approved its construction on Massachusetts Avenue, and the proposed monument would be captioned "The Fountain of Truth."1 The nature of any truth depends largely upon who tells it. The "Mammy" monument, like all monuments, was to have presented a particular historical narrative, its agenda being to signal, not only what to remember, but how to remember it. For the Southern, white elite who were nourished, nurtured, served, and sustained by Mammy's faithful care and tireless service, the sculpture seemed a good idea and a fitting tribute to the virtue of unwavering loyalty. But for Mammy herself, who was stripped of both her identity and her agency, who suffered the unwanted sexual advances of her master, the resentful and retaliatory abuse of her mistress, the forced detachment from her own children, and a lifetime of round-the-clock work with no pay, the "fountain of truth" was profoundly bitter and horrendously painful. To Mammy's descendants, all heirs to her trauma, the planned statue told a very different story. The image they saw was not a black woman nursing a white infant, but a slave sustaining the life of her oppressor. While the United Daughters of the Confederacy–all white–relished both the nostalgia of the image they suggested and the social order it portrayed, opponents of the image–overwhelmingly black–found in the proposed artwork a painful history, a biased narrative, and the conspicuous absence of their point of view. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, still in existence, has endorsed other monuments celebrating the glories of the Old South and its antebellum social order. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were more than 1500 Confederate tributes in public spaces around the United States as recently as 2016.2 Current news has reported on the removal or destruction of some of these monuments, as public opinion has begun to decry the mismatch between the narratives these artworks embody and the modern sensibilities of an increasingly racially and culturally diverse American populace. Narratives matter. Whether explicit or implicit, the narratives embodied in artworks are told from a particular point of view. All artistic narratives--be they monuments, or sculptures, or images, or stage works, 1 or musical pieces--are fair game for critique. Like a stone-hewed monument, a piece of music can also signal, not only what the composer believes we should remember, but how we should remember it. Responsible scholarship requires transcending cognitive comfort to examine the narratives embodied in both the aural and visual images we consume. Recent critiques of Confederate monuments call into question a variety of modern- day symbols and traditions, particularly those rooted in nineteenth-century racial norms. We are forced to ask this question: As advocates of diversity, equity, and inclusion, how should we regard artworks conceived in accordance with the unfortunate racial norms of a bygone era? Should we allow them to stand, or should we, metaphorically speaking, topple them from their pedestals? A highly cherished tradition here in Kentucky is the performance, at many of our major gatherings, of Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home." Composed in 1852 and published in 1853, the song has undergone multiple adaptations, renditions, and arrangements over the past 168 years. The song is a treasured institution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, of the Kentucky Derby, and of the University of Louisville. "My Old Kentucky Home" was adopted as the state song in 1928. The song's clearest tie to the racial sentiments of an earlier era was the use of the terms darky and darkies in its original lyrics, derogatory and archaic references to enslaved Africans. In 1986, the state adopted a revision to these lyrics, removing the inflammatory terms. Today, words like "people," "old folks" and "loved ones" are sung in their places. The offensive language removed, we might argue that current performances of the sanitized "My Old Kentucky Home" proceed to the enjoyment of thousands with the awkward problem solved. There is more to know, however, about "My Old Kentucky Home" and about how music and art serve us in the telling of historical narrative. If we check off the revision box and walk away, we've not only glossed over the complexity of its narrative, but we've missed an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of the history and context that gave rise to the song's creation. All creative output happens within social, cultural, political, and economic contexts, and ultimately, all of art tells the story of that interconnectivity. The song "My Old Kentucky Home" was born during a critical historical moment, originating in the vortex of thought that would ultimately spell the end of slavery in America. The year 1850 saw the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, a brutal law that criminalized harboring escaped slaves, even if they lived in free states. This law incentivized not only the capture and re-enslavement of blacks who made it to freedom, but also the abduction and sell into slavery of even free-born blacks who had never known slavery at all. A famous case of the latter is the story of Solomon Northup, whose memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, inspired the 2013 academy- award-winning film by the same name. Outraged by this law, New England native Harriet Beecher Stowe picked up her pen to write. On June 5, 1851, the first installment of Beecher Stowe's story appeared in a newspaper called The National Era. Published in serial form in the newspaper over the next several weeks, her story became a powerful anti- slavery message, the impact of which she could not have possibly fathomed. In 1852, the completed work was published as the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. 2 Written in the parlance of its times, the book certainly contains language and stereotypes that, without question, are unacceptable according to modern standards. This notwithstanding, there is absolutely no way to argue against the fact that Uncle Tom's Cabin spoke powerfully to nineteenth-century sensibilities about the evils of slavery in a way that no other book did. This book became, not only the single most important anti- slavery publication of the antebellum era, but one of the most influential American literary works of that century. Harriet Beecher Stowe's argument favoring freedom for black people, as expressed in Uncle Tom's Cabin, was her most impactful and enduring legacy. Uncle Tom's Cabin changed the entire national discourse on blacks in America. It exposed the horrors of slavery and sparked new critiques of the slave-holding South, igniting powerful new arguments in favor of abolition. The defenders of slavery hated Harriet Beecher Stowe, and they went to great lengths to discredit her work. Nonetheless, the essential message of the book--that slavery is wrong--was delivered with resounding success to a public ready to hear it. And Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a bevy of other artistic creations, from plays, to other literary works, later, to movies, and to songs, including "My Old Kentucky Home." Uncle Tom's Cabin was set in Kentucky. Drawing inspiration from the novel, Stephen Foster composed these original lyrics: The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home. 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay, The corn top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom While the birds make music all the day. The young folks roll on the little cabin floor, All merry, all happy, and bright. By 'n by hard times comes a-knocking at the door, Then my old Kentucky home, good night. Weep no more my lady, oh! weep no more today! We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home, For the old Kentucky home far away. They hunt no more for the 'possum and the coon, On the meadow, the hill and the shore, They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon, On the bench by the old cabin door. The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart, With sorrow where all was delight. The time has come when the darkies have to part, Then my old Kentucky home, good night! Weep no more my lady, oh! weep no more today! We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home, For the old Kentucky home far away. The head must bow and the back will have to bend, Wherever the darkies may go. 3 A few more days and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow. A few more days for to tote the weary load, No matter 'twill never be light. A few more days till we totter on the road, Then my old Kentucky home, good-night! Weep no more my lady, oh! weep no more today! We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home, For the old Kentucky home far away. 3 Artworks, by their very nature, lend themselves to multiple meanings and interpretations.4 Today, a song like "My Old Kentucky Home" has evolved in its meaning with the times, and can evoke a variety of interpretations, associations, and emotions that have absolutely nothing at all to do with Stephen Foster's original intent.