
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993                   TAG: 9310130114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MONTGOMERY, ALA.                                LENGTH: Short

`DIXIE' WRITERS BLACK? AND FROM . . . OHIO?

"Dixie," the anthem that was a fixture at political rallies "away down South' for 100 years, may have been written by a black family - of Yankees.

A new book from Smithsonian Institution Press seeks to dispel the popular notion that the song was written by white minstrel performer Dan Emmett.

"Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem" agrees with other history books that Emmett made "Dixie" a hit when he performed it on Broadway in 1859.

But authors Howard and Judith Sacks say Emmett learned the song from the Snowden family of black musicians in his hometown of Mount Vernon, Ohio.

If the research is correct, "it's a lesson in the irony of our history and the naivete of those who attach special meanings to a song," said William Ferris, co-editor of the "Encyclopedia of Southern Culture."

Howard Sacks, chairman of the anthropology department at Kenyon College near Mount Vernon, said his quest for the origin of "Dixie" started after a friend found a cemetery marker for brothers Dan and Lew Snowden that reads: "They taught `Dixie' to Dan Emmett."

Historians agree the song was rewritten many times, but say the opening line and chorus have remained the same.

So why would a freed slave "wish I was in the land of cotton"?

The reason, Sacks said, is the paucity of other blacks in the area.

"They were not lamenting slavery, but there was a strong sense of loss of family, tradition and culture. . . . To be in the North and be free was not an entirely positive experience for an African-American family."

by CNB