etiO (VI IW l.,l I 53SIN M/A I LNMW "-- I 715s\L.IC n1 sudy ( nnue 2119 r ry I n' I Nk M I -nI UAN aU IL, MAaAL I N C Sunday. October 20, 195 7 THE FOLK SONG: . By ROSE PERLBERG Daily Activities Editor SWING LOW, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home .,.. You sit elbow to elbow in the dim, smoky Fireside Room of Lane Hall, with the melancholy strains of the Negro Spiritual swelling around you. A fireplace at one end casts the only light - a flickering, eerie light-on you, your fellow sing- ers and the half dozen guitarists hunched over their instruments. It's hot and stuffy, but you don't feel it. People stumble over you in an effort to find a square foot of floor space, but it doesn't bother you. Outside, ping pong players shout, laugh, and shuffle noisly, but you don't hear them. You're caught up with the music and the enthusiasm of those around you. You sing and sway with them. The refrain is over. A young music, Saxe has uncovered some guitarist, who seems to be the interesting data. He's also decided leader, breaks the sudden silence to make it a career, with graduate with a cheery call for song re- work in folklore after he receives quests. a B.A. in anthropology this June. "Eating Goober Peas," cries an Although we may not be aware attractive coed sitting next to of it, we've always had folk song you. in one form or another, Saxe points out. AND THE somber mood instilled by the Spiritual changes to BEFORE MASS communication gay hilarity. You find yourself with the phonograph made clapping, tapping and shouting widespread entertainment possible, your way through the nonsense folk songs were the property of verses of 'Goober Peas.' individual, culturally i s o 1 a t e d The young man with the guitar, groups. you learn, is Art Saxe. He's presi- Especially in I e s s accessible dent of a fairly new campus or- places like the southern Appala- ganization, the Folklore Society- chian and Smoky Mountains, or started last spring-which spon- New York's Catskill Mountains, sored the little gathering you're so weekly sings and dances were very wrapped up in. common, Some of the country's What was this gathering, a more rural spots, still unspoiled friend asks you later in the eve- by radio and television, continue ping? the tradition today. You say it was a folk sing and Sings weren't planned, Saxe says. that you had a good time. But They arose spontaneously out of a can you tell him more specifically natural need - for entertainment what folk singing really is? and self expression. Song gave Club president Saxe doesn't people a chance to blow off steam claim to be able to answer the on politics, hard times, anything $64,000 Question on folk singing, that griped th-m at the moment, but after almost decade of inten- or made them happy. sive study on folklore and folk There were no words or music. THE SINGERS ... As an old-time banjo-player once Saxe runs a t a n n e d hand said when asked what notes he through close-cropped curly black played: "Hell, you don't play hair and laughs. "You could make notes, you just pick at itt" the list as long as your motiva- Folk songs passed from genera- tions, aspirations or feelings." tion to generation by word of mouth.-With changing eras the MORE SERIOUSLY, he lists six singers fitted topical words to the of the "obvious reasons:" lyrics, words that expressed the 1) Political. During the 1930's way they felt at the time about when unions were struggling for things around them. In most cases, recognition, their proponents put however, the music remained the new words to old music. To famil- same. iar Negro Spirituals they would sing: TODAY, MORE than ever, folk- Would you be free from Wage lore student Saxe reports, peo- Slavery? ple are taking up folk songs. Some Then join in the grand indus- trial band.-.-. . of it may be in commuercialized 2) Religious. Both church and Tin Pan Alley guise, but it's still living room still ring with such plucked out of folk idiom. More Negro Spirituals as "Old Black of it is the same folk music that's Joe" and white counterparts like been handed down for years - "Go Down Moses." with one difference: it's often 3) For fun, or to make fun of associated with a certain person- a prominent figure. When psy- ality in the field, and formalized chology first came into popular to follow his personal style. thinking, folksingers offered this "True" folk song, Saxe explains, satire: is never sung the same way twice. Then along came Jung and It changes continually to fit the Adler singer's mood and the occasion. And said. there's gold in them Why do people sing folk songs thar ills...-. today when there are so many 4) Back Room Ballads. These so- other forms of entertainment? called off-color songs or bawdy ballads were being passed down in the old-time oral tradition until recent recordings. As such, Saxe remarks, they're noted for their catchy s a y i n g s and rhythm. Throughout their evolution, only the "catchy" ones survived. 5) Children's'- songs. Handed down in the same way as bawdy ballads, these pieces like "The Fly and the Bumble-Bee" are light and entertaining for the younger set: Fiddle-de-dee, Fiddle-de-dee The fly has married the bumble- bee... . 6) To be different. With many other media for amusement at their fingertips, some people take to folk singing because it's "so quaint." They think it makes them stand out from the ordinary and gain some sort of recognition. WHERE DOES the music for all these songs originate? Actu- ally, Saxe explains, "it's an infu- sion of many, many different na- tional traditions: English, Span- ish, French, West African Negro, Scandinavian-the list is endless." If you want to trace a broad field of American folk music, Saxe (Continued on Next Page) s Chicago and Its Race Problems By JOHN WEICIJER Daily Staff Writer he City SHORTLY BEFORE the Supreme Court's desegregation decision,Vow an elderly Negro 'wrote a letter to' ~ one of the Chicago papers. In this letter he recalled his family's mov- ing into a predominantly white amhusements, but they generally neighborhood when he was a boy, draw the line at "living with around 1900. People were friendly them.",Their reason is chiefly then, he said; when his mother economic. Property values de- was sick, the neighbors, both white cline, white Chicagoans believe, and colored, took turns keeping when Negroes move into a neigh- house for the children. Without borhood. They refute statistics in- drawing any parallels,, he asked dicating the reverse by their own simply, what happened? experience; they know what they Chicago, at the time he wrote, have seen. already seethed with racial ten- sions. A large part of the city's IT IS c to an te itizen police force was engaged in keep- of the city that the neighbor- ing order in the Trumbull Park hoods which were white and are housing project, where six Negro colored have gone downhill} rap- families lived in an otherwise all- idly. In some cases, these areas white development, have simply changed from white "Neighborhood commis s i o n s" slums to colored slums, but in were beginning to appear, seeking others a real depreciation cannot to preserve and maintain residen- be overlooked. tial districts, particularly those The Kenwood area, for instance, threatened with Negro occupancy. was regarded as one of the city's The city's Negro population was "nice" districts, up until about ten rapidly increasing, with new im- years ago. Since then Kenwood migrants arriving daily, has changed from all-white to mostly Negro. The results of this r HE NEGROES - and the po- process have badly hurt the Ne- lice - are still at Trumbull groes' claims to being able to Park; the neighborhood commis- "keep up" a good neighborhood sions are gathering momentum; when given the chance. the i m migrant s continue to Kenwood was really the first stream in. The ingredients for an negdbosrhood. ri eco mthatNe r explosion are present; last sum- resbhd.ePande fro th ei mer, a riot on the' Calumet Park groes had expanded from their beach, near the steel mills, al-" te'aareachieinto second most et tingsoff.fateand slum districta: they had most set things off. . had no chance to prove them- Housing is the crucial issue. selves. Kenwood was their chance, Job competition between races is but with the whole white com- almost negligible, since Negroes munity watching, the Negroes are filling jobs in industries in missed their opportunity. which whites do not seek employ- asent in large numsbers. THE DISTRICT is a little on the White people are willing to shop shabby side now; the homes 'Ith Negroes and share publichave become virtually apartment Knows What Happened, Wonders What To Do buildings in many cases, housing borhoods actually started; rede- two aod three families where one velopment projects. They operate lived before. The buildings are on the ounce of prevention theory. rundown, the lawns unkept in -"Let's keep the neighborhood up many places. Perhaps there were to now, and not have to tear just too many people moving in, things dowp later." What one of trying to better themselves, for them would do if a Negro family Kenwood to hold. Perhaps it moved into its area is problemati- would have gone downhill any- cal. The best guess, and it is no way; it was an aging neighbor- more than a guess, is that the hood before. But whatever the commission would become a "pres- reason, however legitimate it is, sure group" asking the family to the deterioration is there; it is leave. What it would do if it constantly pointed to as "what to failed is another question. expect if they move in here." The racial problem in its pres- "What happened in Kenwood" ent virulent form is compara- was one of the worst things that tively new to Chicago. Before could have happened to the Ne- World War II, Negroes formed a groes. It has been' a major cause small minority of the population, of the determination of other concentrated on the central part neighborhoods to keep them out. of the South Side. However, dur- That determination is expressed ing the war, high-paying jobs in the formation of the neigh- were plentiful in northern war borhood commissions. Officially, industries, and southern Negroes these groups are concerned with flocked north to get them. Chi- keeping housing and zoning stan- cago, unfortunately, drew most of dards high; they are neutral con- its immigration from among the cerning Negroes who might move poorer, less literate Negroes of into the districts, and they wor- the central Deep South, and drew ry only about "blight" in an 'area, them in larger numbers than oth- But, to many of their members, er cities, due to its easy accessi- "blight" and Negroes are synony- bility by rail. The more people mous, and the commissions study who heard about the fine jobs, the the "weak spots," the houses and more came north after them. blocks where Negroes might move There were jobs enough and more in. Some are organized down to during the war; afterwards, there the block level. was always relief for the lazier ones if they couldn't find a job. PRECISELY WHAT they are or- But there was never enough hous- ganized for is nebulous. Indi- ing. eating zoning infractions and pro- moting improvement campaigns AT FIRST the Negroes simply have been their major accomplish- utilized the space in their old ments in most cases. A few have neighborhood to the utmost, pack- studied, and in one or two neigh- ing the families in by illegal con- versions of houses and apart- ments. When this was insuffi- cient, they began to expand into the adjacent districts. This was acceptable; the white people liv- ing in these areas were them- selves making enough in war in- dustries to move into other, bet- ter neighborhoods. The resistance came in these better neighborhoods, such as Kenwood. White property owners signed agreements pledging them- selves not to "sell colored." They had noticed already the decline in the original colored district from overcrowding. But the City Council declared the agreements illegal; Negroes who could afford to, could and did move into the good districts. Here prejudice combined with economics, Once one colored fam- ily was in an area, few white fami- lies were interested in buying property there; future sales al- most always meant a change of race. This selling and buying pro- cess still continues; it shows no signs of stopping or being stopped. A SOLUTION to this racial problem is one of Chicago's most pressing needs. It is made doubly necessary by the expected expansion when the St. Lawrence Seaway is completed, since new docks and plants will be con- structed in sections of the city most afflicted with racial prob- lems. One answer, and the most com- mon among whites at present, is following what might be termed a policy of containment; it is generally called "holding the line," meaning separate white and col- ored neighborhoods along the same lines as now exist. The trou- ble with this, from the white point pf view, is that "the line" See RACE, Page 19