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• 1 media/fblogo.jpg 2021-03-31T13:54:50+00:00 Questions and Argument 15 plain 2021-09-02T17:52:55+00:00 This project began as an effort to uncover the history of the commemoration of Dan Emmett and "Dixie" in his Ohio hometown. How, I wanted to know, had Emmett first come to be commemorated in Mount Vernon? Were there particular individuals or groups who had a particular interest in making sure that he was remembered? How did Emmett and "Dixie" become such an important pillar of Mount Vernon's civic identity that Emmett schools and festivals would be named in his honor? I embarked on this research at a time of heated debate about Confederate monuments, which led me to wonder how local residents had responded to accusations that both "Dixie" and blackface minstrelsy were symbols of racism. Trying to answer these questions led me to dusty collections at the local historical society, to scrapbooks at the Mount Vernon public library, and to archives in Columbus and Cleveland. I have gone through newspapers and city directories, toured museums, and read countless books about Dan Emmett and blackface. I have also, as you will see, drawn on my own personal experiences in Mount Vernon and have included my own stories when appropriate.
  
  The history I've discovered reveals a great deal not only about commemorative practices, but also about race and racial politics in the twentieth and twenty-first century United States. For the commemoration of Emmett and of his song, "Dixie," is in large part a story about whiteness, or about the ways in which their racial position affects how white people understand the world. In the early years of the twentieth century, Emmett was important to whites, especially those from the South, as a symbol of a romanticized southern past and of national reconciliation after the Civil War. In the mid-century, Mount Vernon residents began to construct the town's civic identity around Emmett and his legacy with the idea that Emmett and "Dixie" could inspire heritage tourism. They, like most whites nationwide, saw no problem with blackface minstrelsy and simply accepted the racial hierarchies of the day as natural. To them, Emmett was simply an accomplished composer and performer who was arguably the most famous person born in Mount Vernon.
  
  But this is also a story about how countermemories remain alive and how commemoration can be contested. While the population of Mount Vernon is overwhelmingly white, Black people have always lived here and they long questioned not only the claim that Emmett wrote "Dixie," but also the ways in which many white residents have sought to maintain their existing commemorative practices in the last forty years despite intensifying critiques of both blackface performance and "Dixie" as racist.
  
  The colloquialism "whistling Dixie" means engaging in hopeful, unrealistic fantasizing, and it's particularly appropriate in this case. For it is only by whitewashing blackface and whistling Dixie that Mount Vernon can continue to celebrate Daniel Decatur Emmett in 21st century America. This project offers a case study of Mount Vernon, Ohio; but this "typical American city," I believe, has a lot to tell us about the country as a whole.