The Razorback Marching Band Chimes in to Bring Down "Dixie"

The year was 1969 and the University of Arkansas Razorbacks were headed to play a national championship game against the Texas A&M Aggies. A pep rally was set to be held in the Chi Omega Greek Theater the night before the game. When the students arrived, they found Black Americans for Democracy protesting where the band normally sat. They were peacefully protesting the playing of "Dixie" on campus. Their demands were clear. If the band played "Dixie" at the game they would protest at the game. University officials were very scared of this idea as President Nixon was to be attending the national championship and they didn't want the university to have a "bad image."

The drum majors took the band to Wilson Sharp House where football players were being housed. An impromptu pep rally was set to be held there. When making their way back to the band hall, band members noticed the African American members of the band were missing; as they had went back to the band hall and waited for the rest of the band to return. After finding this, Black and white members of the band had a heart-to-heart conversation about "Dixie" and how it was hurtful to African Americans. The Director of Bands, Richard Worthington, made the decision to remove "Dixie" for the safety of all the band members.

Richard Worthington retired from the University of Arkansas in the Spring of 1970 and Eldon Janzen became the new Director of Bands. Janzen came in and kept the decision of not playing "Dixie." He soon replaced the "Dixie" portion of the pregame show with a piece titled "Swing March."

In 1971, Sandford Tollette II became the first African American drum major in the band's history. Tollette joined the Razorback Band in 1969, the year of the "Dixie" protests, and served as drum major until 1973. Tollette was a freshman at the time of the removal of the song and says, "Name calling, specifically one of the big things that I would hear when I became the drum major and before I became the drum major would be 'Play Dixie N-----. Play Dixie N-----.' Constantly hearing that and being a 19-year-old kid, it angered me but then being a student I was torn between an emotional anger reaction back and my home training but also a deep spiritual understanding that me being there was a part of making a change so we had to hold ourselves together a lot of times." (“Stopping Dixie at the University of Arkansas”)

The protests organized in 1969 spearheaded the movement to end the playing of "Dixie" at the University of Arkansas. Although the university stopped playing the song, many white student continued to sing the song at University events. The song is not sung or played at university events now. There is no explicit rule against the song however, and even with the university removing the song, many schools (mainly high schools) allowed the song to be played at events or have it as the fight song. To sum things up, an unnamed student said it best in their letter to the editor of the Arkansas Traveler, “If a Black man tells you that 'Dixie' is offensive to him, and you continue singing 'Dixie,' you are intentionally insulting him. An intentional insult to a Black man is racism, and no amount of rationalizing will change that.” (“Stopping Dixie at the University of Arkansas”)

Alydia Brashear is a current honors freshman completing her B.S.B.A. with a major in Accounting through the Integrated M.Acc program. She plays trombone in the Razorback Marching Band and is involved with the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity.

“History | University of Arkansas.” 2020. Uark.Edu. 2020. https://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/music/ensembles/band/history.php.

“Much Ado about ‘Dixie.’” 2020. Arkansas Online. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. July 19, 2020. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jul/19/much-ado-0010about-dixie/?opinion.

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‌“Stopping Dixie at the University of Arkansas.” Stopping Dixie at the University of Arkansas, 2012, stoppingdixie.weebly.com/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2020.

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