University of Mississippi bans Confederate 'anthem' Dixie

The school’s athletics department was asked to create
a ‘new and modern’ pregame show that does not include
the racially controversial southern song

Nicole Puglise
Wednesday 24 August 2016 21.39 BST

Dixie, a song often considered to be the unofficial Confederate anthem, will no longer be played at the University of Mississippi – bucking a tradition of performing the song at university events.

The school’s marching band, the Pride of the South, will no longer play the song or any variations at athletic events, Mississippi Today reported on Friday.

“Because the Pride of the South is such a large part of our overall experience and tradition, the Athletics Department asked them to create a new and modern pregame show that does not include ‘Dixie’ and is more inclusive for all fans,” the school’s athletics department said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

The band first played the song around 1948 in honor of the school’s centennial, David Sansing, a professor emeritus of history at the university and author of a book on its history, told Mississippi Today. Daniel Decatur Emmett, a northerner and minstrel show songwriter, is credited with penning the song in 1859. The song wasn’t written for the south and was supposedly a favorite of Lincoln’s, but became especially popular in the south during the civil war.

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