Whistling Dixie

Do songs of regional chauvinism and banners of ethnic pride exacerbate racial tension? That is a touchy question these days, what with black students hoisting a black-liberation flag in Newark classrooms and a black state legislator walking out of a banquet in Richmond when the band struck up Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.

For years, Dixie has been a song that bothered the sensibilities of Southern blacks because it has come to seem almost the anthem of the Confederacy. Last week, however, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that there is nothing racist about Dixie.

The court upheld a five-day suspension of 29 black students at the Jonesboro, Ark., high school. In 1968, the students walked out of a pep rally in protest when the school band played Dixie. Although they were eventually reinstated, several parents fought for the principle in court. A three-judge federal panel concluded that Dixie was merely "a typical American song with a gay and catchy tune" and not a "badge of slavery." The court's answer would have won the approval of Abraham Lincoln. On the day after Appomattox, he instructed the military bands outside the White House to strike up Dixie. Said the President: "I have always thought Dixie was one of the best tunes I have ever heard."

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