Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 4, 1994 TAG: 9403040190
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Minutes earlier, the Norfolk Democrat had been told that he was at least 20 votes shy of success. At best, the House would go along with a Senate rewrite that dropped references to "darkey" and "old Massa" from the song.
Robinson pressed ahead, if for no other reason than to let his colleagues know that he believed the 116-year-old ballad would offend blacks, even if the words were changed.
What began as a gesture quickly turned into a groundswell that featured emotional testimonials from several delegates, both white and black. By the end, the traditional argument for retaining "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" melted away.
The House voted 87-9 to repeal the state song altogether.
Robinson was surrounded by colleagues who congratulated him on the unexpected victory.
"I'm very pleased that this body recognized the fact that this song, no matter how it is structured, offends some African-Americans," he told reporters.
The measure now goes back to the Senate, which can either go along with the House or ask a joint panel to try to reach a compromise before the General Assembly adjourns March 12.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, said he had not decided what he would recommend to the Senate. "I wouldn't say I was pleased. I'm going to sleep on it. Maybe I'll sleep on it for a couple of days."
Robinson was not even sure he would bring the measure up on the House floor after the General Laws Committee refused to recommend repeal of the song earlier this week.
But he said his resolve was steeled when he received an anonymous note scrawled across a Washington Post article about the committee vote.
The note, which Robinson read Thursday on the House floor, stated: "Too bad jerk - then move to another state; you people have ruined Virginia. No wonder all decent Virginians switched to the Republican Party. We're sick of minorities constantly complaining, demanding!"
That is the kind of sentiment, Robinson said, that the song provokes.
Del. Jay DeBoer, a Petersburg Democrat, noted that "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" is from a genre of minstrel music that was performed in blackface and would be offensive to many people today.
"I can't say this song - older version or new version - is what Virginia is about these days," he said.
Del. Kenneth Melvin told of the horror and shame that he and his wife felt when the song was played at a conference of Southern legislators in Miami Beach two years ago.
One black legislator stormed out of the banquet hall in protest, but the Melvins froze in their seats as Virginians around them rose in salute.
"Being unable to stand with pride when that song was being played engendered a level of discomfort in me that I cannot describe," the Portsmouth Democrat said.
The only person to speak against Robinson's floor amendment repealing the song was House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, who spoke of a childhood accident that left him blind in one eye and made him different from others.
Cranwell argued that just as he had learned to hold no malice toward his tormentors, so too should the legislature go through the healing process of rewriting the song.
"I think it is a vote of enlightenment to say we are going to change those things in our past that carried . . . pain," said the Roanoke County Democrat, who eventually voted for the bill with the repeal.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
Memo: ***CORRECTION***