Ole Miss Dixie With Love When Does the Crowd Say the South Will Rise Again
The University of Mississippi'southward marching band will no longer play any variation of the song "Dixie" – a tradition some vii decades quondam at football games and other sporting events.
The University'south Athletic Department confirmed to Mississippi Today on Friday that the song, which was the unofficial canticle of the Amalgamated States of America during the Civil State of war, will no longer exist played at able-bodied events.
Ole Miss Athletics managing director Ross Bjork said that the decision was made by the Athletic Department, and Chancellor Jeff Vitter was informed beforehand.
"We felt that it's the right affair to do. It'southward time to move forrad," Bjork said. "It fits in with where the academy has gone in terms of making sure we follow our creed, cadre values of the able-bodied department, and that all people feel welcome.
"The Athletics Department asked (the band) to create a new and modern pregame show that does non include Dixie and is more inclusive for all fans," the University Athletic Department said in a statement released after Mississippi Today asked almost the song being dropped.
The statement put the dropping of "Dixie" in the context of renovations made this yr to ameliorate the fan experience at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, where the Ole Miss football team plays home games.
"It's a fan friendly surround on game day in that we are inclusive," Bjork said. "That should include our words, actions and pageantry. And music also goes into that."
The songs "Dixie," "Dixie fanfare," and a pregame system containing themes of "Dixie" will no longer be played by the band, known equally the The Pride of the Due south. Band directors, who chose not to provide comment for this story, were fabricated aware of the Athletics Department's conclusion over the summer.
The move comes subsequently at to the lowest degree a year of coordinated efforts to limit the playing of the song.
During games in the 2015 football game flavor and the 2015-2016 basketball season, the band did not play the song. Earlier all seven dwelling games last season, the song was played fourteen times – in the pregame Grove concert and on the field earlier the games kicked off.
The band omitted the song from its on-field pregame performance on January. 1 at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
The song was start played by the Ole Miss band around 1948, said David Sansing, Ole Miss professor emeritus of history and author of the sesquicentennial history of the university. The band has been an Ole Miss fixture since 1928.
For the academy, "1948 was the centennial celebration, and that'southward when Ole Miss was cloaked and covered with all the memorabilia of the Confederacy," Sansing said.
"'Dixie' may take been played a little bit sooner than '48, simply I don't recollect and then," he added. "I think it really was adopted effectually the combination of the centennial and the Dixiecrat movement in the South."
Marching band members are in campsite this calendar week in Oxford, learning music and drill the week before grade starts at the university. The full Pride of the South band will travel to Orlando, Fla., for the Rebels' Labor Twenty-four hours football match-up against the Florida State Seminoles.
This is the second time in seven years the university has moved to sever ties with some class of the song "Dixie." In 2009, former Chancellor Dan Jones asked the ring to end playing "From Dixie With Love," an organization that morphed "Dixie" with the Union Army's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" because some fans continually chanted "the South will rising again" during a poetry.
Jones' conclusion to remove that song garnered criticism from many Ole Miss fans and alumni – many of whom chosen for his removal. Jones' contract every bit chancellor was non renewed in 2014. The song controversy was not mentioned publicly as a reason for that action.
After two Ole Miss students tied a rope noose and a flag showing the Amalgamated battle flag around the neck of the statue of James Meredith, who integrated the university in 1962, Jones commissioned a study that assessed Amalgamated symbols and imagery on campus. The findings of that study produced numerous proposed changes to contextualize the academy's history.
Vitter, who officially filled the postal service Jan. 1, has communicated his efforts to continue implementing changes from Jones' written report.
The university'due south move is the latest in a years-long attempt to distance itself from Confederate imagery equally it relates to athletics. In 2003, the university removed the on-field mascot "Colonel Reb," who many said resembled a plantation owner. University students selected "Rebel Black Carry" equally the new on-field mascot in 2010.
In 1997, former Chancellor Robert Khayat effectively banned Confederate battle flags from being waved during football game games by implementing a policy disallowing sticks from beingness carried inside the stadium.
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Source: https://mississippitoday.org/2016/08/19/for-ole-miss-sports-dixie-is-dead/
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