The Gallant South
The Southern Way of Life is highly romanticized
But this is highly fanaticized
In a libertarian dream
That is egregiously obscene
No, the monuments must come down
All around the town
For white supremacy was an abomination
And slavery provided the underpinnings of our nation.
For there was great coordination
The founding fathers practiced the abomination
And contrary to the myth of taxation without representation
It was actually motivated by British desires of abolition (*)
New England sea captains delivered to the auction block
And the profits– and this may come as a shock
Provided the basis of northern philanthropy
And the basis for many an Ivy League college and university.
For an unvarnished look at our history may take you aback
No in the north and south it was built on the black man’s back.
For the north and the south were in silent collusion
In maintaining this terrible institution.
For our “peculiar institution” was highly unsavory
Based on the perverted notion of black slavery
The basic tenets of which were when simply stated
The master’s wishes were always sated
The southern libertarian position today endures
The master owned the slave and fought to secure
His property rights which included everything under the sun
With black women and men having absolutely none.
But how did this Gallant System work?
It was based on lack of total control
The slave did what he was told
And toiled in the fields until he was old.
And the underlying fear of racial mixing
Achieved a paranoid fever pitch
For white masters the overriding fear
Was that white women may get an itch
With black men cohabitate
No, even a sexual look could be fatal
For the incubus of the raping black man
Stirred the southern man
And led to southern trees bearing strange fruit
But hypocrisy has always been the abomination
Of midnight integration
For the gallant south was a culture of rape
From which black women could never escape
Master impregnated his slave with abandon
Then sold his own offspring at a profit handsome
His interest on capital (his “increase”) his absolute right
And based simply on the system’s overwhelming might.
Howard P. Charman, MD 12-10-2017 and 7-6-2020
Southern Trees Bear Strange Fruit Meropol / Billie Holliday
America’s Slave Coast
The Dark End of the Street
McLean Democracy in Chains