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| - Real estate investor Steve Witkoff walked out to an Elvis Presley recording of "An American Trilogy" — a compilation of three folk songs that begins with "Dixie." Only the Dixie portion of the recording played during both his entrance and exit.
A campaign rally for former U.S. President Donald Trump at New York City's Madison Square Garden held in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election generated significant controversy for its inclusion of speakers making overtly racist comments or jokes.
The inclusion of the song "Dixie" as a walk-up tune for one of the speakers at the rally was among the examples cited in news reports:
It is true that Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor and friend of Trump's who spoke at the rally, walked out to the song Dixie during his appearance at the rally. PBS Newshour's live stream shows that moment at 2:05:00.
"How good of a song is that?" Witkoff, who is from New York City, asked at the top of his speech. Though myriad variations of the lyrics exist, the intro music contained two of the stanzas most commonly associated with the song:
Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old things there are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
Oh, I wish I was in Dixie, away, away
In Dixieland I take my stand to live and die in Dixie
'Cause Dixieland, that's where I was born
Early Lord one frosty morning
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
This specific recording of "Dixie," sometimes called "Dixie's Land," comes from an Elvis Presley performance of "An American Trilogy" — a folk medley composed of portions of "Dixie," the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the folk song "All My Trials" (also known as "Bahamian Lullaby). The only portion of the medley that played during both Witkoff's walk-on and walk-off music, however, were the "Dixie" stanzas.
Dixie has long been considered an unofficial Confederate anthem. This view of the song is not an after-the-fact invention but was a commonly held view during the Civil War.
As this March 1861 commentary from a Richmond, Virginia, newspaper attests, "Dixie's Land" was viewed as the "National Anthem of Secession" from the start:
The owner of the copyright of Dixie's Land has realized $4,000 by the sale of that song. This item of intelligence, which has gone the rounds of the newspapers, excited some surprise in the minds of those who simply consider Dixie's Land a song like other songs. "The air is pretty enough," they say, "but the words—why, they are perfectly absurd. What can have given such a sale?"
Do you not know, questioner, that Dixie's Land has become the "National Anthem of Secession?" That it is called for in Southern Theatres, and received with cheers and applause, while Hail Columbia and the Star Spangled Banner are hissed down?
Though "Dixie's Land" was likely written by a Northerner, the song, the anonymous correspondent wrote, "belong[ed] to the South by right of seizure."
"Dixie's Land" was originally written for minstrel performances — musical acts in which white actors in blackface portrayed Black people using racist tropes. In that incarnation of the song, the Washington Post reported, "the song is sung by a freed slave fondly remembering his time on a plantation."
As the Post wrote in its coverage of Trump's rally, many institutions have banned use of the song, which remains popular in the South, and which some see as an innocuous celebration of Southern heritage:
In recent years, "Dixie" has been banned by a number of institutions, including the University of Mississippi because of its history as the unofficial national anthem of the Confederate States of America. New Orleans's Dixie Brewery changed its name to Faubourg Brewing Co. and Dixie State University became Utah Tech University.
Because the song "Dixie" was played at Trump's rally during a speaker's entrance and exit, and because that song was widely considered to be an unofficial Confederate national anthem, the claim is true.
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