Utah’s Dixie: History to Some, Racist to the Rest of the Country
By Howard Sierer
Referring to Southern Utah as Dixie may be history, heritage, and tradition to long-time residents, but to the rest of the country, and many newcomers to the area, the name is synonymous with racism, pure and simple.
I’m well aware that early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the South were sent here to raise cotton. While fewer than one-third of all Southerners owned slaves and I have found no record of African-American slaves in southern Utah, southern traditions, habits, and culture came with these early pioneers. Southern Utah quickly acquired the nickname Dixie.
Taking pride in one’s heritage is not offensive in itself. We’re all descended from immigrants, and aspects of every nationality and culture make unique contributions to the American melting pot. But by the same token, every one of them has skeletons in its closet.
We celebrate German composers Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms for their widely-admired classical music but abhor Adolf Hitler for World War II and the holocaust. Many of us own Japanese electronics and automobiles, but remember with anger and disgust Pearl Harbor and Japanese atrocities in World War II. Other examples come readily to mind.
Take a look at an ancient religious symbol and icon which appeared widely in Greek, Roman, Hindu, and Buddhist art: the swastika. In dozens of cultures and religions, this emblem had a favorable meaning for millennia.
Its adoption by the Nazis changed history. Today, no one but a neo-Nazi would display this symbol with pride despite its noble and positive history before the 1930s.
The word ‘Dixie’ is far less fraught with negative connotations than is a swastika; nevertheless, it brings a lot of baggage with it. Some of that baggage was even illustrated in past activities at Dixie State University.
In the 1980s, the college’s yearbook – titled “The Confederate” by the way – showed students holding mock slave auctions. Blackface minstrel shows were performed on campus as late as the 2000s. The Confederate battle flag appeared on many athletic team uniforms and flew alongside Old Glory.
In 2009, the Dixie State College Board of Trustees ‘retired’ the college’s long-time nickname, “The Rebels.” The 5-4 vote was met by howls of protest from hundreds of students and alumni. Did these folks realize that part of the heritage they wanted to preserve was mock slave auctions and blackface minstrel shows?
Dixie State’s statue of two Confederate soldiers and featuring the Confederate flag wasn’t removed until 2012. Celebrating the Confederacy and its war to preserve slavery had been a part of Dixie’s heritage until then.
The stage is set again amidst today’s racial protests. I am appalled by riots and the failure of local governments to perform their most basic responsibility: public safety. Black Lives Matter fuels the fires of victimhood and hatred while politicians and business leaders signal their virtue by singing its praises, fearing to be labeled racists.
Nonetheless, I’m tired of hearing how the word ‘Dixie’ somehow embodies our Southern Utah heritage and that removing it from public institutions and buildings would disavow our pioneer legacy.
It’s easy to fire up a sympathetic crowd of the faithful with speeches and protests claiming that the word ‘Dixie’ pays tribute to the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears of their ancestors. But in doing so, speakers ignore Dixie State’s more recent overtly-racist embrace of the Confederacy and the slavery it stood for.
I am shocked at the naïveté of those claiming that retaining the word ‘Dixie’ gives them a chance to explain Southern Utah heritage to tourists. We entertain millions of tourists each year; how many of them do you think ever hear our explanation of the word “Dixie?”
‘Dixie’ signifies racism to the rest of the country, plain and simple. This year Mississippi’s legislature voted to remove the Confederate emblem from its state flag, the last state to do so. The Dixie Chicks singing group is now “The Chicks,” Lady Antebellum is now “Lady A.” A variety of companies are eliminating racially-tinged-symbolism from their products.
Closer to home, hospital administrators at Dixie Regional Medical Center have chosen a new name as well. The new name will be Intermountain St. George Regional Hospital. The hospital’s administrator ascribed the change to “what [Dixie] means to those, outside of southern Utah.”
Are these companies and entertainers weak, or are they finally ridding themselves of needlessly provocative symbolism?
I argue that a name change is in step with avoiding the derogatory terms used to describe and demonize past American immigrants. Historically demeaning nicknames and slurs once applied to Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Irish, Jewish, Italian, and Polish immigrants, among many others. These slang terms have disappeared in polite company; it’s time equally repugnant words and symbols targeting African-Americans, go as well.
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The nickname of Dixie as referring to St. George area, as you know, comes from the cotton needs of pioneers that, due to the civil war at the time became unavailable. Brigham Young sent families with experience in cotton farming here where open fields and water were plentiful.
It is unfortunate that the name “Dixie” also relates to the Southern states involved with slavery, so removing it from our institutions is probably the “safe” approach. I am reminded though of some in a leadership role said words to the effect that “when history is changed, history becomes history”. Removing reminders of history results in removing the changes for good with it.
I am sorry the author is so offended. How dare the descendants of brave pioneers hold onto their heritage. We all should change to conform to the norm liberals expect of all good citizens.
We stand on the shoulders of courageous pioneers who forged a beautiful area of souther Utah they called “Dixie”. It is because of their efforts we have such a beautiful place to live. I am offended that the author wants to dishonor their memory by asking us to follow like sheep. Mr Sierer, you have no respect for others courageous efforts to forage a wonderful home in southern Utah called “Dixie”.
I feel the College needs to eliminate all symbolism and reference to slavery. The Mormons didn’t have any association with slavery so why do we have to get rid of the Dixie label??
Sorry folks, but there are records of some slaves brought to Utah. And at least one Black man who had been baptized and given the Mormon priesthood was later stripped of it by a Brigham Young decree. Young himself supported slavery. And it’s good to remember that the Mormon migration to the Great Basin was an attempt to leave the United States behind and move into the Mexican territory, so these were not exactly flag waving American patriots who settled our state. And the word “Dixie” didn’t just become a racist term. It always has been. Even the holdouts in the “Deep South” recognize that. Why maintain a tradition that offends?
It is the left, the Democrats, who supported and promoted slavery. It is the left, the Democrats, who formed, fashioned, operated, & terrorized people with the KKK (see Dinesh D’Souza book “The Big Lie”, or see Biden & HRC devotion to Robert Byrd). It is the left, the Democrats, who now want to cancel our culture, destroy our history, & teach our children and grandchildren to hate America.
Over these hundreds of years we Americans have embraced our mistakes & transgressions; we have stepped forward to reshape our culture appropriately; to right wrongs and enhance our ability to live up to our original Constitution (see Amendments 13, 14, 15, & 19).
What you see now with the left, the Democrats, has nothing to do with righting wrongs or enhancing our ability to live up to our Constitution. What you see is implementation of an agenda (please refer, in part, to the BLM website, but also review the Democrat platform in this election year).
Appeasing these people by knuckling under to their demands in the name of “equality” furthers their agenda, pure and simple. Furthering their agenda is the goal. The ONLY goal.
They do not care one whit about equality or even black lives (look up these names: David Dorn, Chris Beaty, Italia Marie Kelly, Patrick Underwood, Bernell Trammell).
There is a term for people who acquiesce to those who would oppress us through appeasement of their demands: useful idiots.
I am so proud to live here. I admire the strength of the pioneers who settled this area. I do not want to see their legacies canceled. We are still strong. We are still tenacious. We must remain so. The survival of our Constitutional Republic depends on it.
I’d like to point out that you are correct in stating that the Democrats were the party in support of the Confederacy. However, the Democrats have not always been of left-leaning or liberal ideology (including at the time of the Civil War). The Republicans were the liberal left-leaning party at the time. In other words, the Democrats have not always been synonymous with the left and the Republicans have not always been synonymous with the right. The parties’ histories are fluid and do not stay static throughout our country’s history, so simply applying your conception of the modern-day Democrat to the past is misleading and inaccurate.
Also, in response to your last paragraph, I strongly urge you to read the Federalist Papers before you use vague and emotional rhetoric to argue for what is needed for the survival of our republic.
G Lea speaks the truth even if liberals don’t want to hear it.
Obviously Fox News is alive and well in Southern Utah. If you read your history, you should know that the Republicans were the liberal party until the Great Depression era (1930’s). FDR remade the Democratic Party into the liberal or progressive side. During the Civil War era, the newly formed Republican Party, which had only nominated one previous candidate — John C. Fremont in 1856 — was progressive under Lincoln’s leadership. The Democrats were Southern dominated and anti-progressive, supporters of the “Dixie” thing. The two dominant parties of today are total mirror images of their Civil War to Depression Era selves.
J C Smith, I do read my history. Just because you don’t agree with the facts, you don’t need to criticize others just to meet your agenda.
Fact: FDR, a Democrat, forced Japanese Americans into concentration camps. (the politically correct term is “Detention”camps). Was that very progressive? (1942-45)
Fact: Ronald Regan, a Republican, made an apology om behave of the Uniter States. He also paid compensation to those that experienced this indignity at the hands of the Democrats.(1984)
Fact: It was President Eisenhower, a Republican, who sent troupes into Little Rock, AR to integrate public schools. (1954)
Fact: The 1965 Civil Rights Bill was introduced by Senator E. Dirksen, a Republican, and seventeen Democrat senators voted against it. (1965)
While Democrats want to forget about the past (Senator Byrd being a KKK Grand Wizard that Democrats warship), they can’t say they are for civil rights and equality for all Americans. The facts prove it. And, I don’t haver to see it on Fox News.
Mr. Brackner, this is getting fun!
You can always find exceptions to every rule, but anecdotal history never tells the full story. Hopefully you would agree that Democrats have been the party of progressives and Republicans have been home to conservatives for almost a century. And Senator Byrd was a genuine anomaly. In his early days, he was a “traditional Southern Democrat.” They were holdovers of racist Southern philosophy. A few, like Byrd, transformed their thinking. Most of them changed parties, (example, George Wallace) particularly after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was strong-armed through by LBJ with help by many Democrats and some Republicans — the moderates, like Dirksen. Luckily, and happily, Byrd grew out of bigotry and right-wing thinking. The moderate (rational?) wing of the GOP (Dirksen, Rockefeller, et al,) has slowly died off, and the philosophical- intellectual wing (George Will, William Kristol, etc.) have quit the party. It was once a proud party with a sound philosophy, and did some good things. Now it’s all but purged itself of intellectualism and tradition (Romney being perhaps the last hold-out) and become the party of Trump, which means without direction, for nothing except division and exclusion, and against social change, acceptance and unity. A loss for everyone. And, by the way, I’m a native Utahn and was raised as a Republican. And I still think “Dixie” is divisive. Our little print debate proves it.
I think the only thing this little debate proves is some people want to be offended by terms like “Dixie”, “Master Bedroom”, “Uncle Ben”s Rice” etc. Someone will always be offended by some name or term. There are some who are offended by the name of George Washington. Are we in favor of changing the name of the county we live in? How about Washington State or Washington D.,C.? Most citizens respect ,if not revere, Washington’s name because his contribution to establishing our great nation overshadowed hi ownership of slaves.
In the same light, Utah’s Dixie was coined over a hundred years ago by revered pioneers that established a wonderful home of many of us today. As I mentioned earlier, we stand on the shoulders of these great men and women. I am thankful and respectful of their contributions that make my life so enjoyable. If we leave it up to the citizens of southern Utah, I am confident they would want to keep the name Dixie. I know the argument of minorities rights. We may offend someone like yourself with the name Dixie. But it seams to me removing a name of a small region in souther Utah will not make anyone safer, more prosperous, or better off. And, if we talk about minority’s rights, the First Amendment to the US Constitution protects the right of free speech.
Political party ideology aside, I was an independent when I first moved to Utah in 2014. When I discovered I could not vote in party primaries, I changed to Republican so I had a voice in who was to be my elected representatives. I am a fundamentalist that believes government should do for citizens only what they can not do for themselves. That is why I am opposed to socialists (Progressive) efforts to gain control of our citizen’s lives.
J C Smith: I did not cite Fox News in my comment and I don’t believe Bill Brackner did either.
What on earth are you talking about with Fremont and Lincoln? Lincoln eventually led the new Republican Party (and we all do know what he accomplished for this Republic, do we not?). Lincoln’s decisive leadership of the new Republican Party came after the 1856 election that Fremont lost to Buchanan. Buchanan was a Democrat who supported the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case which denied a slave’s petition for freedom.
We all are so fortunate to have this forum. Quite simply what this discussion has illustrated is that we are desperately divided. That’s a requirement of the left. Divided we fall. How do you think it’s going so far?
I DON’T want my country “fundamentally transformed”, in the words of Joe Biden. I DON’T want common sense, truth, history, and reality replaced with victim ideologies and identity politics. That is the agenda I refer to in my original comment. Can’t you see it?
I want my country to continue thriving, improving the lives of ALL of its citizens by bringing back manufacturing, creating jobs, raising our standard of living, lowering taxes, less government interference in our lives, following the rule of law, and adhering to our Constitution. Our Constitution is our roadmap forward and always has been.
No, you didn’t cite Fox News, but the sentiments are what Fox focuses on. And your history concerning the period immediately prior to the Civil War is spot on, Fremont lost to Buchanan, and of course Fremont was a more enthusiastic opponent to slavery than Lincoln was. My point was that both of them, and the rest of the early Republican Party, were the leaders of a progressive movement, the movement to change the country for the better by eliminating slavery and recognizing equality for people of color. Progressive, as opposed to conservative. Progressive meaning to progress, as in changing unfairness to more of the Declaration of Independence’s “All men are created equal.” The Democrats of the time were the defenders of tradition, including slavery. The Republicans remained the more progressive or liberal party for at least the next half century. The Democrats were led mostly by Southern Democrats, and leaned conservative. Okay?
Thank you for your clarification.