“Dixie,” often known as the Accomplice anthem, was performed at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Sq. Backyard in October 2024.
Actual property investor Steve Witkoff walked out to an Elvis Presley recording of “An American Trilogy” — a compilation of three folks songs that begins with “Dixie.” Solely the Dixie portion of the recording performed throughout each his entrance and exit.
A marketing campaign rally for former U.S. President Donald Trump at New York Metropolis’s Madison Sq. Backyard held within the last weeks of the 2024 presidential election generated significant controversy for its inclusion of audio system making overtly racist feedback or jokes.
The inclusion of the track “Dixie” as a walk-up tune for one of many audio system on the rally was among the many examples cited in news reports:
It’s true that Steve Witkoff, an actual property investor and good friend of Trump’s who spoke on the rally, walked out to the track Dixie throughout his look on the rally. PBS Newshour’s dwell stream reveals that second at 2:05:00.
“How good of a track is that?” Witkoff, who’s from New York Metropolis, requested on the prime of his speech. Although myriad variations of the lyrics exist, the intro music contained two of the stanzas mostly related to the song:
Oh, I want I used to be within the land of cotton
Previous issues there should not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
Oh, I want I used to be in Dixie, away, away
In Dixieland I take my stand to dwell and die in Dixie
‘Trigger Dixieland, that is the place I used to be born
Early Lord one frosty morning
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
This particular recording of “Dixie,” generally referred to as “Dixie’s Land,” comes from an Elvis Presley efficiency of “An American Trilogy” — a folks medley composed of parts of “Dixie,” the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the people track “All My Trials” (often known as “Bahamian Lullaby). The one portion of the medley that performed throughout each Witkoff’s walk-on and walk-off music, nonetheless, have been the “Dixie” stanzas.
Dixie has long been considered an unofficial Accomplice anthem. This view of the track isn’t an after-the-fact invention however was a generally held view in the course of the Civil Conflict.
As this March 1861 commentary from a Richmond, Virginia, newspaper attests, “Dixie’s Land” was considered because the “Nationwide Anthem of Secession” from the beginning:
The proprietor of the copyright of Dixie’s Land has realized $4,000 by the sale of that track. This merchandise of intelligence, which has gone the rounds of the newspapers, excited some shock within the minds of those that merely contemplate Dixie’s Land a track like different songs. “The air is fairly sufficient,” they are saying, “however the phrases—why, they’re completely absurd. What can have given such a sale?”
Do you not know, questioner, that Dixie’s Land has turn into the “Nationwide Anthem of Secession?” That it’s referred to as for in Southern Theatres, and obtained with cheers and applause, whereas Hail Columbia and the Star Spangled Banner are hissed down?
Although “Dixie’s Land” was likely written by a Northerner, the track, the nameless correspondent wrote, “belong[ed] to the South by proper of seizure.”
“Dixie’s Land” was initially written for minstrel performances — musical acts during which white actors in blackface portrayed Black folks utilizing racist tropes. In that incarnation of the track, the Washington Submit reported, “the track is sung by a freed slave fondly remembering his time on a plantation.”
Because the Submit wrote in its protection of Trump’s rally, many establishments have banned use of the track, which stays widespread within the South, and which some see as an innocuous celebration of Southern heritage:
Lately, “Dixie” has been banned by quite a few establishments, together with the University of Mississippi due to its historical past because the unofficial nationwide anthem of the Accomplice States of America. New Orleans’s Dixie Brewery modified its title to Faubourg Brewing Co. and Dixie State College turned Utah Tech University.
As a result of the track “Dixie” was performed at Trump’s rally throughout a speaker’s entrance and exit, and since that track was broadly thought-about to be an unofficial Accomplice nationwide anthem, the declare is true.
