Southern Legitimacy Statement: “Georgia and Louisiana–specifically New Orleans which the rest of Louisiana hates anyway–are both located in the South and they are where I come from. My family came to Virginia from the British Isles; migrated to Georgia; didn’t spread out much till after World War II, and my branch landed in New Orleans when I was two years old. I grew up with people in New Orleans telling me I was southern and southerners outside of New Orleans telling me I didn’t sound southern, and Yankees telling me, ‘Oh yes you do.’
“All I know is Yankees talk funny.”
LOUIS ARMSTRONG ORDERS
THE 101th AIRBORNE TO
LITTLE ROCK SEPTEMBER 17, 1957
Ambassador Satch, my ass
You know that State Department
expects me to go to Russia
thinks hot trumpet can warm up
those cold motherfuckers
What if one of those Russians
ask me about Little Rock?
Have to tell him a colored man
doesn't have any country
or at least not these United States
The way they are treating my people in the South
the government can go to hell
Look here I can play Central High
in Grand Forks, North Dakota
but our sons and daughters can't step foot
in Central High, Little Rock, Arkansas
Governor called out the National Guard
National Guard?
What nation they guarding?
Not no nation a colored man can join
President's a two-face
a worrisome thing
left folks like me and these children
to sing the blues all day and night
He's got no guts
Most powerful man in the world
can't pick up a telephone
and get protection for nine children?
He could beat Hitler but not Faubus?
When I see on television a crowd
spitting on a little colored girl
I got a right to get sore
She didn't ask to be born
so black and blue
What you white folks need
is a large dose of Swiss Kriss
That just might clean out your shit
Oh, say can you motherfucking see
By the motherfucking dawn's early light
*
Show me what you wrote
on that yellow legal paid.
Solid.
That's just what I said and what I still say
and I'm going to say again tomorrow
and every day until that two-face does
something for my people
When he's ready to march
alongside those little colored kids
and parade through that school house door
then he can ask for Ambassador Satch
I'll sing God Bless America then
White boy, don't take a word out of this story
