ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190079
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
IF STATE songs are seldom memorable, most at least are innocuous. Not Virginia's. Impending retirement of the commonwealth's song, in the wake of a unanimous House of Delegates vote to declare it a "state song emeritus," is welcome.
"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" - or "Virginia," to use the official name revised when the General Assembly adopted it as the official song - has a catchy tune. But the lyrics are offensive - long so to many black Virginians, more recently so to many white Virginians, who dislike lyrics that seem to celebrate slavery, via fake dialect, in the presumed fond memories of an "old darkey" for his "massa."
Retiring the song, rather than simply repealing its official status, is a compromise between legislators who for years have tried to rid Virginia of the embarrassment and those who have supported the song for a mix of reasons, from antiquarian to racist. The resulting "emeritus" status may be ambiguous, but the ambiguity serves the useful purpose of symbolically suggesting a Virginia that is looking to the future without denying the reality of the past.
That historical reality is not the preposterously romanticized picture of slavery to be found in the lyrics of "Carry Me Back." The reality includes a composer, James Bland, who was not a former slave but a well-educated black New Yorker: If his songs were to be performed on the minstrel circuit that flourished in the late 19th century, however, they had to conform to the prejudices and stereotypes held by the white audiences of the day.
The reality includes, too, the adoption of "Carry Me Back" as the state song in 1940 without thought to its offensiveness to a significant minority of Virginians, and the struggle to repeal begun a quarter-century ago by then-state Sen. Douglas Wilder.
Now, the song's retirement is soon to become the next chapter. History happened; this much cannot be escaped. But the future, while inevitably influenced by history, need not be bound by it.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB