Plessy vs. Billboard

Billboard displayed a startling lack of judgment when it made light-hearted reference to Plessy vs. Ferguson — the 1896 United States Supreme Court decision that codified segregation — in an educational piece from 1969 that attempts to demarcate the difference in mission between the Country Music Association and the similarly-named Country Music Foundation. This peculiar misfire is further compounded by the trade journal’s failure to catch the title’s flaming typo before it went to print:

“Seperate” vs. Separate

Billboard

October 18, 1969

The Country Music Association (CMA) and the Country Music Foundation (CMF) may be only a letter apart in appearance, but in actuality the two are totally different in structure and purpose.

In short, the CMA is dedicated to perpetuating, spreading, encouraging and promoting country music in all of its facets to all sections of the world and through every media of communication.

The CMF is dedicated to the operation, expansion, development and fulfillment of purpose of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the establishment of endowments, the preservation of artifacts and historical data and such work as contributes to the educational cause of country music generally.

Each group operates with a separate board of directors, and CMA rents its operating space from CMF as a functionary measure for close association with the Hall of Fame.

The two cooperate to the fullest degree, yet act independently. It is this independent action which has made each stronger over the years.

CMA, now in its 11th year, was an outgrowth of a disk jockey association, but has become, in manifold terms, far more than that. CMA was established so there could be a foundation which could build a structure to house physical and mental memories.

CMA has had what is known as a banner year, surpassed only by what the CMF has accomplished. More than coincidentally, much of these accomplishments were brought about under the direct hand of those closely involved with Billboard. In simple terms, the policy of Billboard has been that of total involvement in the music industry. Hal Cook, former publisher and now vice president of the company, is a past president of CMA and, for the past year, has been president of CMF. Bill Williams, southern editor of Billboard and past director of CMA, has this year been president of CMA. Lee Zhito, editor-in-chief of Billboard, has served the year as a director of CMA. Continuing the involvement, Billboard publisher Mort Nasatir has, for the past year, been national president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and a trustee. Williams, also a trustee, is a governor of the Nashville chapter.

It was Cook who spurred action on a tremendous expansion program for CMF, one which would make its fastgrowing library rank among the major scholastic reference departments of the nation. In a program worked out with the Joint University Libraries of Vanderbilt, Peabody and Scarritt Colleges, the move made thousands of music volumes accessible to any serious student of the subject. Additionally, construction was begun for providing more area for display and storage at the Hall of Fame Building. And the planned purchase of additional property for still further future expansion was announced.

CMA, on the other hand, recognized the strong need for two areas of development and, with the cooperation of its membership, established new categories for directors. One of these was distribution, which covers the broad spectrum of the record industry from the huge rack jobbers to the retail stores. Two major distributors will sit on the boards of the future, helping solve ways of getting country music into more stores across the nation. The second category was that of international involvement, and two of our neighbors from foreign countries now also will sit on the boards of the future. Again, it gives emphasis to the spread of our music everywhere.

CMA also increased its membership roles, added a full-time public relations director to better serve all of the membership, and to help spread the knowledge of activities for both CMF and CMA, and helped bring about the first live telecast of a country awards show. There were scores of daily day-to-day matters taken care of by the association, under the steady hand of Mrs. Jo Walker, executive director.

One of the most tangible results of the year’s work was the attendance at the Hall of Fame. By mid-September the mark had gone over 120,000, and from the time the doors first opened the figure already stood at a quarter-million. Great strides were made in all areas of the building, and people began coming back for a second time.

Separately but equally, CMA and CMF got the job done in 1969.

Did You Know?

The lone dissenting voice in the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision — Kentuckian Justice, John Marshall Harlan — wrote the following statement that one can find posted on the United States National Archives website:

I am of the opinion that the statute of Louisiana is inconsistent with the personal liberties of citizens, white and black, in that State, and hostile to both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution of the United States. If laws of like character should be enacted in the several States of the Union, the effect would be in the highest degree mischievous. Slavery as an institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there would remain a power in the States, by sinister legislation, to interfere with the blessings of freedom; to regulate civil rights common to all citizens, upon the basis of race; and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens, now constituting a part of the political community, called the people of the United States, for whom and by whom, through representatives, our government is administrated. Such a system is inconsistent with the guarantee given by the Constitution to each State of a republican form of government, and may be stricken down by congressional action, or by the courts in the discharge of their solemn duty to maintain the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

John Marshall Allen served on the United States Supreme Court for thirty-four years, a tenure exceeded by only four other justices, states the Supreme Court Historical Society on its website. Harlan, a white Kentuckian, grew up in the pre-Civil War era in a family that enslaved people, notes NPR’s Steve Inskeep in his interview with Peter S. Canellos, managing editor for enterprise at POLITICO and author of The Great Dissenter: The Story Of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero. “One of the great mysteries of Harlan’s career,” Canellos tells Inskeep, “is that he grew up in such a family and yet became the leading defender of Black rights of his generation.”

NPR link —

“The Supreme Court Justice Who Made History By Voting No On Segregation”

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