EDUCATION : One Family’s Objections Prompt School Program to Drop ‘Dixie’

When Jacqueline Mangum’s two daughters complained about having to sing the Civil War anthem “Dixie” in a musical performance at Santa Monica’s Lincoln Middle School, she encouraged them to complain to their teacher.

The music teacher told them they didn’t have to join the other students in singing that particular song during last week’s concert, Mangum said. Dissatisfied with that answer, Mangum called the school herself.

The response to Mangum’s complaint was swift: School officials removed the song from its year-end musical program Tuesday.

Mangum’s sensitivity to the song came from her years growing up in Alabama, she said, where singing “Dixie” was a politically charged event. Though the song was a regular part of high school pep rallies there, Mangum said she and other students refused to participate.

“It has always been a rallying cry for the South that they should have been able to continue with slavery,” Mangum said.

Mary Kay Kamath, board president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, said the song, composed in 1859 by Daniel Decatur Emmett, had been included in the program to represent a specific period in musical history.

“They did not feel that it would be detrimental to use some songs that were obviously taken from a period that had different insights than we have today,” said Kamath. “But sometimes people overlook how it might be interpreted.”

This demonstrates the balancing act that schools perform in educating students, Kamath said. Schools must teach history in various ways, including music, but have to be sensitive to ethnic groups’ feelings.

The school’s music teacher, Cecile Blanchard, originally had included the song in a segment of the program called “Patriotic Potpourri,” which contained a number of historical, public-spirited tunes.

“This is part of the history of what has gone on,” said Kamath. “No one had looked at it from how students would feel.”

Although Mangum said school officials should have taken her daughters’ concerns more seriously, she is pleased with the school’s ultimate response.

“I wanted them to be aware of the feelings [the song] could engender,” she said. “I knew a gasp would go through the audience if they heard that song.”