Panel opposes historical marker for Bessie Smith
If Bessie Smith were alive today, she’d likely be singing the blues about North Carolina. A state advisory panel has recommended against approval of a highway historical marker for the night the blues legend stood up to the Ku Klux Klan nearly a century ago in Concord.
Historians on the state Highway Historical Marker Advisory Committee voted Tuesday afternoon against supporting the marker proposal, which now goes to Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Reid Wilson for a final decision.
The vote was 8-0, with members citing a lack of primary sources about the incident, said Leslie Leonard, administrator of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program. But she said the proposal “is on the secretary’s radar.”
A decision by Wilson is expected to happen in the next several weeks or months.
The marker project was the brainchild of Jeff Williams, a 50-year-old Concord native who has spent his whole life in and
around the city. He expressed disappointment in the outcome when informed of it by The Charlotte Observer, but wants to see what Wilson does.
“It’s not a hard no, so I’ve got a little bit of hope,” Williams said. “It might be one of those situations where you don’t get accepted in the first round.”
Williams said he had never heard about Smith’s confrontation with the KKK until a couple years ago. He was watching the 2001 Ken Burns documentary “Jazz” when the Concord incident was mentioned.
He felt that Smith’s actions deserved broader recognition. “You never
heard that story in school, or growing up, or anything,” Williams said.
‘PICK UP THEM SHEETS AND RUN’
The details of the events of July 1927 come mainly from Chris Albertson’s definitive biography of Smith, and supplemented by a local history book on the Black experience in Concord by Bernard Davis Jr. Albertson’s book quoted Smith’s sister-in-law and niece about what happened.
In a memo from the marker program staff to the advisory board, they noted it was unclear whether the niece was in Concord at the time and that the sister-in-law heard about it from Smith.
By the late ‘20s, Smith was in her mid-30s and ensconced as the “Empress of the Blues,” touring the South by train with her musicians. She’d perform under a canvas tent for Black audiences or in the segregated theaters of the Jim Crow era.
It was under a tent in Concord’s Logan neighborhood, the longstanding heart of its Black community, where Smith performed during that hot summer night.
One of her musicians who came out of the tent to get some air spotted a half dozen Klansmen in white robes trying to pull out the tent’s stakes. He ran in to tell Smith, who stormed over to the group, cursing at the gathered racists. This was not out of character.
With one hand on her hip, Smith demanded to know what they thought they were doing. “I’ll get the whole damn tent out here if I have to,” she said. “You just pick up them sheets and run.”
That was followed by more swearing. The Klansmen gave up and walked away while Smith marched back into the tent and continued singing.
‘BESSIE SMITH VS. THE KKK’
There are more than 1,600 highway markers scattered across the state for a program that began in 1935.
On Tuesday, the advisory panel just recommended in favor of one of 13 applications, for a 1996 local effort to stop a hog plant from coming to a predominantly Black community in Edgecombe County.
In Concord, the field that Smith performed at was on the corner of Tournament Drive and Chestnut Drive, according to Davis’ book. A churchaffiliated food pantry and parking lot stands there now.
The proposed language for the marker is: “BESSIE SMITH VS. THE KKK: At July 1927 concert, Ku Klux Klansmen confronted blues singer Bessie Smith, who made them leave. Occurred here.”
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