Matt Schickling
English 487W
Bob Dylan on Whites within a White Power System
By 1963, the civil rights movement in America had reached, arguably, its discursive peak with battle lines drawn by words, and more commonly, in blood. The movement had seen victories balanced by malicious acts of hate, and the once-gleaming idealism surrounding Dr. Martin Luther King’s success with nonviolent protest was beginning to fade into frustration with the present and apprehension for the future.
By May of that year, Bob Dylan was reeling from the success of his second studio album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and had become a prominent voice in contemporary music. He used this platform, most often in live concert, to protest the state of American society and politics with lyrical diatribes aimed at the rampant injustices toward African Americans. The folk-singer’s lyrical rhetoric was often bathed in allegory, but as the movement became more violent, he began to abandon ambiguity and to voice his views more bluntly. In August of 1963, he was asked to perform at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an event conceived to demonstrate the peaceful, united force of the movement. Ever the opportunist, Dylan used this event as a means to project an unpopular view: that, perhaps, white civilians were not the only ones accountable for their violence toward blacks. He poised this argument within three songs, but the crux lied within “Only a Pawn in Their Game”, a reaction to the murder of Medgar Evers, an NAACP leader murdered by a white man less than three months before the March. His rhetoric is at once jarring and convincing, but to truly understand its merit, the song needs to be oriented in history.
On June 11, 1963 at 7 p.m. President John F. Kennedy addressed the United States on television and radio seated behind his desk in the Oval Office. The Civil Rights address, as it came to be known, called for Americans to view civil rights no longer as a legal issue, but as an issue of morality. Appealing to the Constitution, Kennedy proposed that Americans cannot rightly consider themselves a nation of free people “until all its citizens are free,” speaking, of course, of the continual discrimination against African Americans (Kennedy). Kennedy’s proposed legislation would ensure equal rights to African Americans in public accommodations, employment, and federally funded programs. He did not see his plan come to fruition, though the legislation was passed successfully under the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. Seven months before this date, the President was assassinated in public during a visit to Dallas, Texas.
Medgar Evers, field secretary for the NAACP, did not see this proposal passed either; he did not even see another sunset. In 1963, at age 37, he was recognized as “the face of the civil rights movement in Mississippi,” which meant he was the biggest target for white extremists looking to silence the movement (Williams 278). At this point, threats of this nature usually led to tragedy, and Evers, a husband and father, understood what this meant, and was even beginning to have misgivings about the prominence of his position. Some close friends feared his company because of the associated danger. Fred Clark, Sr., who worked with Evers said, “I would not ride with Medgar into town [Jackson] because I knew they was going to get him because everybody else around me got shot, and I knew he had to be on the list” (Williams 279). At the time of Kennedy’s speech, Evers’ work for the day was far from over. He had been meeting with other NAACP leaders to prepare “testimony in support of civil rights legislation” to be presented the following day to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington D.C. (Williams 279). Kennedy’s proposal summarized many of Evers’ obvious goals, and he was probably eager to discuss them with his wife, Myrlie, who was, in her own right, heavily involved in the movement, but Medgar Evers never entered his home again.
A bullet from the dark “struck Evers in the right side of his back and passed through his body” as he stepped out of his truck with an armful of “Jim Crow must go” t-shirts in front of his home around 1:30 a.m. that morning (“NAACP Chief”). Two neighbors reported gunshots and a family screaming to police, who quickly arrived, but Evers, who was found face-down in a pool of blood, died in the hospital not even an hour later. Later that day, the murder weapon was recovered during a massive FBI sweep, which was “a rifle in the bushes in a lot across the street from Evers’ home,” but the killer remained anonymous (“Find Gun”). The following day, African Americans in Jackson rallied both to recognize Evers’ murder and to show that fear had been disregarded and replaced with urgency. Anne Moody, a Tougaloo College student and leader in SNCC, chastised students at Jackson State College for their apparent apathy in continuing to attend class despite what just happened, saying “Every Negro in Jackson should be in the streets raising hell and protesting his death” (Williams 288). But massive demonstrations took place in Jackson and throughout the nation as news of Evers’ murder traveled, some lasting for weeks. On June 24, Byron de La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council, a white supremacist group in the South, and a local “fertilizer salesman was arraigned in Jackson…and held without bail for the murder of Medgar Evers” (“Nab”). He would not be tried until 1964, but Evers’ murder became a notorious example of unjust violence against African Americans in the civil rights movement and inspired direct action and urgency on the national level. Evers’ murder lingered in the thoughts of those involved in the civil rights movement, and especially those involved in the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which would take place on August 28, 1963, just over two months after Evers was killed. Dr. Martin Luther King, in addressing the March on Washington in a New York newspaper four days before the event said, “the Medgar Evers assassination was a shot in the back to every Negro in the United States,” and called for a peaceful demonstration in the nation’s capital to honor his death (King). However, King and many others neglected to mention Medgar Evers in their speeches in front of nearly 300,000 Americans on the day of the event. Instead, most speakers opted to focus on positivity and peace in accordance to the purpose of the event, which was not to show anger or hate, but demonstrate peace and power. [2]
It was no surprise, then, when Bob Dylan, the 22-year-old rising to prominence as a protest-folk singer, took the podium and strummed the opening chords to “When the Ship Comes In” with Joan Baez at his side. The message of the song aligned directly with the theme of the day, promoting the notion of a peaceful conquering of racial inequality. He sang as he had many times before, “they’ll raise their hands sayin’ we’ll meet all your demands, but we’ll shout from the bow your days are numbered,” and the crowd received him with smiling attention (“Ship”). Dylan, however, seemed to have a rhetorical formula in place. This song operated as a means to the next, and deeper truths would surface each time leaned forward and he sang into the bouquet of microphones arranged in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Bob Dylan would challenge his audience to rethink the dynamics of racial violence, proposing a view that placed them as pieces of a grander design manipulated by those in power.
Scrawny in appearance, younger than most people present, with white skin, Dylan stood before the massive crowd and opened his third song, “Only a Pawn in Their Game”, with the line, “A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood” (Dylan). It was not the first time he performed this song; in fact, he had several times before, but never for so many people, and never with this much purpose. The content of the song is quite controversial in regard to the movement, but rhetorically centered on the idea that poor whites do not deserve full blame for violent actions they committed against blacks. They, too, operate within a white-power system in which they fall to the bottom and may not necessarily understand the meaning behind their actions. With this song, he challenged African Americans to acknowledge the perspective of poor whites in an attempt to more fully understand them. Perhaps he sequenced this song after “When the Ship Comes in” as a rhetorical construct designed to move into this topic gradually as it did not align with the general ethos represented in the messages of more popular civil rights songs like “We Shall Overcome” or “Oh Freedom”. Though he asked much of his listeners that day, he did so with morally upright intentions as the lyrics, when understood properly, do justify his purpose.
Dylan’s first challenge was to place this example in a more general context that would gesture not just toward Evers’ murder, but to the whole conception of white violence against blacks. He attempts to do this from the first line of the song, naming only the bullet as the murderer. The man as a whole is absent, and Dylan implicates only his essential parts, “a finger fired the trigger,” “a hand set the spark,” “two eyes took the aim,” partially to dehumanize him, but mostly to separate the image of a singular killer from the scene completely. In doing this, he gives the audience nobody to focus blame onto, which may make them more receptive to an alternative explanation. In this instance, the reciprocal is true; Dylan attempts to draw a distinction between Evers’ name and his body, separating the image of a murdered man from the name Medgar Evers. Particularly, in saying that the bullet was fired “to his name,” Dylan emphasizes that the killer wanted to kill Medgar Evers, the NAACP leader, not Medgar Evers, the man. He is deconstructing the violence into a motivation for the violence, which is signified by saying “but he can’t be blamed, he’s only a pawn in their game,” a theme that is elaborated on through nuance as the song progresses.
The next verse structures poor whites within a white power system, setting their place far below the political elite, who use the poor for their own gain by pitting them against African Americans in a struggle for superiority. Dylan sings, “A south politician preaches to the poor white man, ‘you got more than the blacks, don’t complain,’” which does exactly that; it belittles poor whites, placing them far below the white elite, but only marginally above African Americans. This economic proximity among poor whites and blacks creates tension only through the belief that “you’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” which Dylan proposes, still quoting the southern politician he conjured. He then suggests that in this construction, “the Negro’s name is used” as a slur “for the politician’s gain” as a way to manipulate whites into hating blacks, and by association, supporting the political careers of racists. This character may be based on George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, who said in his inaugural address in January of that year, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth,” by which he meant white southerners, “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” (Wallace). Wallace’s political career was based on this idea, and in this speech, he sought to proliferate the idea that segregation offered whites a chance to maintain their legacy and power in the south. This supports Dylan’s assertion that poor whites act as “pawns” in the political arena, manipulated into position against African Africans designed to raise the prominence of those in power. This fulfills the purpose of the first verse, giving reason behind the motivation of violence.
Dylan uncovers the systematic manipulation of the social ideology of poor whites by structuring it as a historical progression. Dylan says of the poor white man that “he’s taught in his school from the start by the rule that the laws are with him to protect his white skin”. In this, Dylan means that society is structured in such a way that whites, regardless of class, are nurtured to believe that they are superior to blacks, and that it is not something easily corrected because that has been their perception of the social structure of America for their entire lives. This verse seems to be directed toward African Americans as a means of explaining how whites can believe themselves to be superior across all economic classes and lifestyles. To reiterate this point, Dylan sings, “So he never thinks straight ‘bout the shape that he’s in” because a white man’s mind has been programmed to view himself positively because he is white, and African Americans negatively because they are black. This ideology, through history, gives plausibility to the success of politicians like Wallace. Because this ideology exists, they are able to manipulate it further as a means to achieve political power.
Though Byron de La Beckwith, Evers’ murder, was not necessarily a poor man, but, in fact, a middle-class salesman, Dylan’s representation of whites in this song deals specifically with poor whites to contribute more convincingly to his argument. Dylan reflects the perception of the poor white, saying, “From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks, and the hoofbeats pound in his brain.” Dylan places him within a slum, perceiving it to be precisely a slum with insufficient housing with cracks in the walls, beside train tracks that make horrible noises and represent low property value. These things, coupled with the manipulation of politicians and the conditioned conceptions of race relations cause the minds of poor whites to fill with anger, which ultimately manifests as hate for African Americans. They are conditioned by multiple factors to take on a group ideology in which it is deemed acceptable “to shoot in the back,” “to hang and to lynch,” “to hide” beneath the Ku Klux Klan hood, and “to kill” blacks with no mercy. This is what Dylan means by removing some blame from the poor whites, for they do not truly understand what they are doing, but act as “pawns” in the games of the players, politicians and white elites, who seem to truly understand what is going on. The elites are removing guilt from themselves by conditioning poor whites to do their bidding for them. In his final words, Dylan recalls Medgar Evers “lowered down as a king” into his grave, and contrasts his honorable death with that of the murderer, whose epitaph will read “only a pawn in their game.” This contrast partially reinserts the song into the mode of the typical civil rights song by alluding to the idea that in the end, African Americans will overcome injustice. Though not directly, it criticizes the approach of African Americans in civil rights by suggesting that change is not possible if one does not understand what exactly he or she is trying to change. Dylan seems to be saying that whites may not believe in supremacy by choice, but because they are conditioned to think that way. Perhaps a collective understanding of whites could lead to a better strategy.
Dylan’s final song on August 28, 1963 operated within his rhetorical construct to reintegrate himself in the tradition of the movement. He ended with the traditional folk song “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” an uplifting song about perseverance that he performed alongside civil rights musicians Joan Baez and Len Chandler. This performance would work to establish his image as one on the side of the movement, which may have convinced those present of the plausibility of the message in “Only a Pawn in Their Game”. In sequencing songs this way, Dylan was able to insert a controversial view between two accepted views to draw attention away from himself and onto the content of his music.
Dylan revealed not just that there was a race problem that needed to be solved, but also the reasons why it was so difficult to solve. Ultimately, his argument in “Only a Pawn in Their Game” had validity, but was probably not feasible for blacks. While whites may have been conditioned to hate blacks, blacks had been conditioned to feel hated by whites. By this dynamic, giving any reason to absolve violent whites of some of the blame they appeared to deserve, was a difficult endeavor, especially given the spectacle of the day. Overall Dylan’s argument proved insightful and probably true to the nature of poor whites, but the idea may have been too controversial to gain the mass appeal needed to be an integral part of the movement.
Works Cited
Dylan, Bob. “Only A Pawn in Their Game.” The Times They Are A-Changin’. Columbia. 1964.
Dylan, Bob. “When The Ship Comes In.” The Times They Are A-Changin’. Columbia. 1964.
“Find Old Gun Near Home of Slain Negro: FBI Agents Join Jackson Hunt.” Chicago Tribune. Jun.13 1963: s1-3. Print.
Kennedy, John F. “Civil Rights Address.” The White House Oval Office, Washington D.C. 11 June 1963. Presidential Address.
King, Martin L. Jr. “March on Washington.” New York Amsterdam News. Aug. 24 1963: 10. Print.
“N.A.A.C.P. Chief Slain!: M. W. Evers Shot Dead in Mississippi.” Chicago Tribune. 12 Jun. 1963: 1. Print.
“Nab Medgar Evers’ Mississippi Killer: Tension Swells All Over United States.” Philadelphia Tribune. 25 Jun. 1963: 1-2. Print.
Wallace, George. “1963 Inaugural Address.” Alabama State Capitol, Montgomery, AL. 14 Jan. 1963. Inaugural Address as Governor.
Wallis, Jim. “What Does It Mean to Be on God’s Side?” Sojourners. Apr. 2013. Web.
Williams, Michael V. Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2011. Print.
1 Myrlie Evers was not present at the March. She was scheduled to speak during a tribute to “Negro Women Fighters for Freedom” but allegedly missed her flight for the event.