Wednesday, June 19, 2019

The Beating of Nat King Cole

Consider this post to be an early edition of Flashback Friday. 

Imagine a group of men beating Sammy Davis, Jr.  while he performed in Jackson.  Such barbarism took place in Birmingham in 1956.  Legendary Nat King Cole attempted to perform two shows the night of April 10, 1956 - one for a white audience, and one for a black audience - but received punches instead of plaudits. 

Amazingly enough, the Clarion-Ledger published several articles on the attack.


April 11, 1956


April 12, 1956
The irony of this article.

April 13, 1956
However, the Birmingham police and City Judge wasted no time in trying the accused.

April 14, 1956
The attack must have spooked the segregationist Clarion-Ledger because it published this editorial on April 15:


The court convicted the thugs in four days and sentenced them to serve some time in jail.


April 19, 1956

Prosecutions continued. 

May 12, 1956

However, the convicts appealed. Their sentences were reduced from jail time to meager fines.  


November 7, 1956
November 15, 1956
December 8, 1956

Two Yankees attended the concert, thrilled at the chance to see Nat King Cole perform.  Little did they know they would witness some rather distasteful history that night.  National tv show? Playing by the segregationist rules? None of it mattered for these thugs.  However,  the crowd was pretty mad at the klukkers who assaulted the stage and screamed obscenities at them.



33 comments:

Anonymous said...

By now those who attacked him have met our Maker- and have been righteously judged.

Anonymous said...

Ah, the good ole days. I bet there was less crime back then too. Birmingham, like Jackson, was actually a nice city.

Anonymous said...

So what does this have to do with anything in today's world other than stir up the races against each other all over again ?

Anonymous said...

Kingfish' timing of these posts is interesting. Does he have an issue with our confederate flag waving state-wide candidates from Rankin County?

Anonymous said...

I wonder what all parties would think of the degenerate mock sex that passes for dancing and the ignorant mumble-rap that passes for hip-hop and R&B these days?

A lot of people back then thought that African American music would lead to reefer consumption, delinquency, premarital sex, crime, and orher social ills.

Good thing today we know that they were all just a bunch of ignorant racists.

Anonymous said...

What is your point? Why are you bringing up crap that happened 60 years ago.
In 1956 all sorts of injustice happened. As in every year since 1956 to the present.

Anonymous said...

What’s interesting is that people have a problem when history involving racism is brought up but have no problem with the confederate flag. Gotta love Mississippi

Anonymous said...

It’s 2019. Victims and perps have been dead for decades.

Anonymous said...

Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why he thought that was so.

“Because the business community wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you’d lose it. If you had a store, they’d see nobody shopped there. We didn’t have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City.”

In interviews Barbour doesn’t have much to say about growing up in the midst of the civil rights revolution. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” he said. “I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black and white.”

Did you go? I asked.

“Sure, I was there with some of my friends.”

I asked him why he went out.

“We wanted to hear him speak.”

I asked what King had said that day.

“I don’t really remember. The truth is, we couldn’t hear very well. We were sort of out there on the periphery. We just sat on our cars, watching the girls, talking, doing what boys do. We paid more attention to the girls than to King.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20101222020016/https://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/boy-yazoo-city_523551.html?page=3

Anonymous said...

I don't know who Mr Mott or Mr Kelly is, but I would question their statement about Yazoo City being the only place that integrated peacefully. Having lived through the early stages of integration, then the mass integration over Christmas holidays, I can name a few towns that did so peacefully. I agree with Barbour's comments though, it was largely due to the Citizens Councils in towns where the CC consisted largely of downtown businessmen that the integration went smooth. It was,all about business and reality at that point.

Too bad some of our Northern brethren didn't have Citizens Councils in their cities - maybe they could have peacefully integrated their schools in 1970 as well.

Anonymous said...

@7:56, 8:08, 8:59, & 10:20, do you all really have to ask??? Have you not heard of race baiting?

The left constantly brings up these ½ century old + injustices to take the spot light off of their high crime, drug infested, fatherless family, no morals in the home failures they call cities.

Can you image the field day MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, et al would be having if Republican run cities had the crime of Jackson, the homelessness with shit & heroin needles in their streets and on their sidewalks as is the case in places like LA and San Fran?

Leftist politicians and their propagandist’s posing as journalist use this “divide and conquer” tactic to……divide and conquer.

And the sad thing is, conservative so-called journalists are willing to sell their souls for $$$ by keeping the hatred alive between blacks and white.

@10:44PM, thanks for posting this as most do not research history objectively in hopes of the truth and therefore have no clue what really happened day to day in Mississippi. The Mississippi Delta was like a whole other state in many ways, and in many ways it still is today.

Now, under the heading of objectivity, let’s be honest as to why those in the Mississippi Delta, in this case Yazoo City passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town…

LABOR.

Anonymous said...

I'm with 7:56 and 8:59 - Why drag this shit up?? AGAIN ! !

It makes no sense.

KingFish, you're wrong for doing this. All it is doing is rubbing alcohol and salt in a festering wound that will never heal because dragging crap like this up again will never allow it to heal. EVER!

I'll be surprised if you put this in the comments.

Anonymous said...

1956 ?

Yes, what a wonderful reminder about "the struggle". How nice. Especially after the top notch reparations hearings this week. I can't wait for this weekends Clarion-Ledgers front page. I'm sure it will be another racial hit piece. So excited !!!!!




Kingfish said...

Wow. Some people just have to get upset. JJ posts historical stuff all the time. The Kingfish came across this story a couple of days ago. Most people under the age of 65 don't even know about this story and yes, it's pretty interesting.

Anonymous said...

It may be interesting to some. Others, not so much.

All it does is stir the hate pot again bringing back bad memories.

Rod Knox said...

"Why bring this shit up?" 7:23.

The wounds have been festering for as long as I have lived and the racists across this country, especially in Mississippi, wish to pour salt on them. Pointing out some of the more embarrassing racist moments from the past can shed some light on why there is a great deal of resentment among blacks for their poverty and lack of opportunity resulting from government continuing to operate to keep them in their place.

But in the foreseeable future miscegenation will cure all the racial ills in Mississippi. A walk around Wal-Mart any day of the week will show where the future is headed.

Anonymous said...

6:20 - Most of what you wrote is probably accurate. However, Yazoo City was not a town dependent on agricultural labor, nor is it in the Delta.

Regardless, look at it now. You'll see as many black men walking and riding bicycles as you will driving old cars. And most of them have nothing else to do but hang out at the carwash, vacant buildings and the several store-joints that sell chicken.

To their credit, the town has posted a few 'no loitering' and 'no open container' signs.

Anonymous said...

Wow, your fragility is showing. KF can’t post a little modern history without offending all of these civil war scholars. This story isn’t that bad, I guess if he delved into Quincy Jones’ , mother and grandparents making a midnight run out Vicksburg heads will explode.

Anonymous said...

Ha Ha . A hundred people planned the attack, showed up at the concert and 6 rushed the stage.There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Heritage not hate said...

Damn there are some snowflakes up in here.

Unknown said...

I remember my father telling me how they almost killed Chuck Berry over in Meridian one night for trying to "date" a white woman:
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/meridian-ms-negro-rocknroll-star-charles-berry-awaits-news-photo/517725522

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

These same jerks who do not wish to be reminded of the very real history of racist activity which defined the south for hundreds of years will be the first to defend their "heritage" and decry those who would remove monuments to the old south. Anything which does not sanitize their past behavior and demonize those who do not think like them is race-baiting and red propaganda. It's strange that when one sees clearly racist remarks and criticism of black activity and leadership you never see these same people concerned about race-baiting or "healing old wounds". It's obvious that there is still a need for publication of this very real history. If not, in a few days,these jerks will swear it never happened!

Anonymous said...

8:59 Articles like this are important in an atmosphere where so many people like yourself think places like Jackson were once heaven and are now hell. You might understand that everything depends on who and what you are or were. If you were a black man, even a very famous black man, this heaven was your hell. You may have every reason to want to return to those days, he does not. When you talk about how how good things used to be you might think about that. But I really don't expect you ever will.

Rod Knox said...

A great many in Mississippi wax nostalgic for the days when a man could "call a spade a spade." Change is slow but things are improving here.

Anonymous said...

How many more God Damned times will we be forced to watch Mississippi Burning while listening to the Battle Hymn of The Republic? Maybe the current trend toward approving reparations will solve it all and get all demographics in line with reasonable behavior and work ethic. That's it...find a way to decide who to pay and how much and all this shit will reverse itself.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many of those pissing and moaning about KF bringing up ancient history fly the stars and bars on the back of their pickup truck or on their flagpoles.

Anonymous said...

5:12 You have every right to be so pissed. Being forced to watch Mississippi Burning, while being forced to listen to the Battle Hymn of the Republic is torture enough, but a trend towards reparations, that's the last straw! A trend is a terrible thing! My God, what's next, being forced to watch Ghosts of Mississippi? Oh My!

Deo Vindice.. said...

"I wonder how many of those pissing and moaning about KF bringing up ancient history fly the stars and bars on the back of their pickup truck or on their flagpoles.June 20, 2019 at 5:15 PM"

Not sure what that would have to do with the topic. And I don't need to wonder - I'm confident you're totally ignorant of the history of The Confederate First National (The Stars and Bars), but you've bought the Kool-Aid and you suck on the jug every day.

I'm willing to wager fifteen bucks you can not even recognize or identify The Stars and Bars, much less know a damned thing about it. But, you're in good company since Kingfish is right there with you.

Anonymous said...

8:13AM, modern history’s the weekly killings that will approach 100 in JUST THE CITY OF JACKSON, MS alone THIS YEAR that are being committed by victims of ½ century old social programs designed to have black folk “voting Democrat for the next hundred years;” although leftist LBJ didn’t put it so politely.

Race baiting is bringing up specific events that happened before many if not most people alive today were even born that’s designed to divide…including the 6.76 murders of blacks PER YEAR IN THE ENTIRE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI via lynching’s; without telling the story of how many Mississippians were against such behavior, even back then.

It’s the leftist scam and conservative’s that make $$$ off of clicks have gotten have decided you get it on it.

I thank GOD I am blessed enough not to have to earn a living pitting people against one another by constantly bringing up old events that almost never ever happen anymore.

Anonymous said...

Truth will always be problematic for some people. They want to pick and choose the facts which support their opinion and suppress the other facts. This has been especially true in the South. They don't mind reminding you of
the failings of LBJ and FDR and their "social programs" which lead to today's liberal chaos, but don't dare document the sheer terror and injustice pressed upon the African American community which naturally spawned distrust of whites. If you do you are race-baiting and fomenting division. Their point of view has been hashed and rehashed a thousand times and they never get tired or upset when we hear it again, but present one kernel of the WHOLE truth from our past and suddenly they get sick and tired of bringing up old events from a past "we ought to forget". Which past?

Butterfly McQueen said...

You want to have a refreshing laugh after all this race-schmace drivel? Go find an essay in The Bitter Southerner called “Are You a Seg Academy Alum Too? Let’s Talk,” and have a barf bag handy. The author, as one commenter pointed out, sent her own two kids to a private school, a good 40-plus years after the glorious desegregation. The hypocrisy of the sanctimonious left—-oh, my stars. And bars. When these people say, “let’s talk,” they mean...let’s only talk if you agree with me. Opposing views unwelcome!

SBC said...

I lived my first 25 years in Birmingham in the late 60s through mid 80s, and I could not leave fast enough. There are nice people, but the racism is still there, just living under what
what some southerners call "hospitality" while they judge and hate those not like them. I still keep in touch with some distant family and friends and very little seems to have changed.



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