About 35 years ago, while roaming through an uptown antique store in the Carrollton district of New Orleans, I saw something that stopped me cold. It was a piece of sheet music from the early 1900s. I have a small collection of old sheet music, not for playing the tunes, but because of the imagery. I have used pop culture items in my classroom to illustrate racial attitudes and the proliferation of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and distorted imagery. In front of me was just such an image, but of such unique quality, I was dumbstruck.
There has long been a tradition of racist imagery in the development of music in America. The genre popularly known as the "Coon Song," was in its prime around the early part of the 20th century. Derived from the minstrel show tradition, the song lyrics of this period unabashedly use the terms nigger and coon as if they were accepted in everyday usage. They were.
Sh, here I am in the heart of Dixie staring face to face with this bonafide antique in a condition that suggests it is authentic but there is something about this particular piece that makes it stand out. It is both Anti-Semitic and racist! A double-dose.
The song title is "Rebecca's Left Home with a Coon" Under that title is the line, "A Hebrew AfroAmerican impossibility." I must have this.
Slowly and unobtrusively, I make my way to the small counter at the front of the store. A balding man in his 60s looks up.
"What would you have to have for this piece, " I ask. (I hope he doesn't realize what he has there.)
"Oh, that piece is special, it would cost you $100.00.
Dumbstruck again. $100. for something that probably cost 15 cents when it first appeared. Still, I knew this opportunity would not come again. I was in New Orleans for a few more weeks participating in a seminar on Southern women writers and on a very limited budget. A hundred bucks would put a dent in my budget I could not afford, so I turned to the only possibility I had to go home with this relic. I had a day off that weekend so I went to the racetrack. Not Fair Grounds, the oldest and best track in town, but Jefferson Downs, a small bull ring track that was as dicey as it appeared. Suffice it to say the last Exacta of the evening paid me $150. so I marched back to Oak Street and that little shop and purchased Rebecca. I wrapped the glassed-in frame in a soft towel and placed it in the middle of my suitcase. She made it home just fine and for the last 35 years or so has resided in my office.
*Recently I posted this picture of Rebecca on a Facebook page for African-American memorabilia or some such euphemism. I asked if anyone had ever seen this before or anything like it. After a few weeks, I got a couple of responses confirming how rare I thought it was. One collector even said he had something like it but added no details or pictures.
Like my entire collection, it is for sale. I'll accept all issues.
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