Has anyone heard of this? Where was I?

[thea_447]

In an article in the Montgomery Advertiser, Sept. 16,2003, lamenting the death of singer Johnny Cash, a black woman writer, E.R. Shipp, wrote these words:

"Oh sure, there were times in my college student-as-black-nationalist period that I would not admit to enjoying Cash and would neither buy nor listen to his music. That would not have been cool, especially among the crowd advocating that blacks take over Southern states and secede from the Union. Go figure."

[hoosier]

The same column appeared in today's edition of the Harrisburg <u>Patriot-News</u>, and probably in a number of other papers around the country. The <u>Patriot-News</u> noted that Ms. Shipp writes for the New York <u>Daily News</u>. Presumably, the column first appeared in that paper, but there is no indication as to the date it was first published.

The author does not specify when she was a college student, but I would guess it was in the late '60's or early '70's, when the idea of "Black Power" was popular among a segment of the population. I can recall that one of those prominent in the Black Power movement came to speak at my college campus in New York in the late '60's, and said a number of things that weren't exactly comforting to the members of his largely-white audience.

It's unfortunate that Ms. Shipp chose to include that particular paragraph in her column, but the rest of the column was a tribute to Johnny Cash and his music. The way I read it, the author's point in writing the column was that Cash's music could appeal to both blacks and whites, and that we can all be much better off if we focus on the things that can draw us together, rather than those that would drive us apart.

[rbenne]

As difficult as it is to admit, I actually remember that movement. They wanted 4 or 5 states to be black only, of course blacks could still live in the remaining states, but all the whites would have had to move from "there" states. It was a small radical minority making a lot of noise and never taken very seriously by anyone. It started in the late 60's and continued as noise until the mid 70's