SEDONA DELANEY RESPONDS TO ‘STATE OF SONG’
When I was a young girl, I loved to dress up in my mothers clothes. I'm not sure what little girl doesn’t intrude on her mothers things, but it was extra tempting for me because my mom, Colette, is a theater actress. She had seemingly endless rows of costumes and dresses that filled every unclaimed closet in the house (and they still do).
My little body was consumed by the size of these dresses, but one in particular always stood out, her pink dress from her role as Jeanie in The Stephen Foster Story. When I hear the name Stephen Foster, I think of my mother; beautiful ball gowns, enchanting music, a glamorous picture of what life must have been like at the time. I felt like I had stepped back in time when I wore those dresses and I ignorantly imagined what those people must have lived like. It was easy for me to romanticize a life I had never lived in the suffocating corset it required because I had never learned the true story. The seemingly untold story. A story that is at the heart of what Kentucky was, and still is.
Colette Delaney (left) and the author, Sedona Delaney (right), at the reception for “The State of Song: My Old Kentucky Home Faces a Changing World” October 23, 2022.
As I grew, studied history and became passionate about learning Louisville’s vast and interesting past, I realized that the world of The Stephen Foster Story was not all pretty dresses and romance. It was unbelievably dark in ways we cannot truly imagine. As I write this, I am still processing the things I learned, and was also reminded of, in Kentucky to the World’s recent program exploring the real story behind Foster’s song that would come to represent our state, “My Old Kentucky Home.” Learning the real implications of the song we continue to trumpet as our collective anthem made me feel like the silly (and somewhat embarrassing) things people outside this state associate with Kentucky, don't really seem so bad anymore.
In fact, I wish our history was as simple as Bourbon, Horses, and not wearing shoes.
I was probably ten years old when I first I learned of the slave trade sitting in my publically funded Kentucky elementary school. It was vague, generalized, and it was never brought to my attention that these horrors happened right here, even maybe where I was sitting at the time. We can ask over and over, why didn’t they tell us the truth? But the truth is shameful, even for our teachers. How do you look a child in the eyes and tell them the world is evil, that their very ancestors were hideous, despicable human beings especially at an age when some are still questioning whether they believe in Santa Claus.
For my mother, the actress, who has nothing but affection for The Stephen Foster Story, she struggles to come to terms with the fact that the story she told for many years, was not the story that happened. Not at all. In fact, life back then probably sucked for white women like her too, even with all their pretty dresses. The program presented by Kentucky to the World shined a blinding light of truth on our state song. Starting with the truth of what music does, how vital it is to the human experience and how objectively beautiful the melody Foster wrote is. Musicians Harry Pickens and Ben Sollee discussed how music impacts our bodies, minds, and souls in a way that is incomparable to anything else that we share. Music often brings us together but sometimes it has the power to tear us apart. For “My Old Kentucky Home” in particular, the trauma is around the part of music that is not inherently human, the lyrics. I had never before heard the original lyrics of the song, or any of the older versions, and it was absolutely jarring to hear them in this program.
The program was haunting, painful, and at times, frustrating, for both my mother and me to watch. However, I left feeling more encouraged and empowered than I had felt walking in. This was largely due to the children and young adults that stood up with questions at the end. I was in tears in the very beginning of the show, but I also was at the end when I heard how passionate and moved these kids were. I had only wished that I had the opportunity to see something like this when I was 9 years old. One little girl, probably that age, reached up into the microphone that was too tall, and asked the question every person my age asks: “Why…did they lie to us?” Why don't we teach kids from a perspective of progression, with the intention of changing the future, by being a voice and an ally? We are taught about it so passively, never really addressing the issue or having that harder conversation. I know in my heart that it’s a conversation a lot of my teachers would have been more than capable of, had they been given the chance.
(L - R) Hannah Drake, Emily Bingham, Ben Sollee and Harry Pickens discuss the slave trade in Kentucky and its ties to ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’
This program has forever changed my perspective and understanding of the history of Kentucky, something I deeply enjoy learning about. But, some of it is hard to read about. It’s easy to avoid the topic simply because we can enjoy the privilege of thinking we are not affected by it, but we really are. We are all responsible for letting go of the past and moving forward for our children and for their children. I now have a lot of faith that changes like our state song itself and how children are taught about it In school CAN really be made in my lifetime. I did not believe that before. I am so grateful that I was one of the lucky few to have a seat in the theater for this program, and I am excited to see how far it can take us.
