Sunday, 24 July 2016

HISTORY banned for not being racist in 40s USA

A quote I've picked up on as
(1) it shows you can glean useful material from all sorts of sources, and
(2) its a sharp example of how profoundly censorship has shifted to reflect evolving social values

To be clear, this is about a stage musical - NOT a film (the movie came out shortly after, in 1950).

Peter Guralnick (1994) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. London: Abacus.
'In the late 1940s [Memphis city censor Lloyd Binford] banned the stage musical Annie Get Your Gun, because it had a Negro railroad conductor and "we don't have any negro conductors in the South. Of course it can't show here. It's social equality in action."' (p.46)

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