The fact that he seldom commented on the growing Civil Rights Movement, leading to more young audiences and musicians to believe he was a product of an older world, going as far as to call him an “Uncle Tom” (Megill, 77). This was until he made his famous statement about the Little Rock crisis, in which the National Guard was called to let black students into high school, saying in 1957 that “The way they are treating my people in the South the government can go to hell”, subsequently rejecting an offer from the State Department to perform a tour (Megill,
The fact that he seldom commented on the growing Civil Rights Movement, leading to more young audiences and musicians to believe he was a product of an older world, going as far as to call him an “Uncle Tom” (Megill, 77). This was until he made his famous statement about the Little Rock crisis, in which the National Guard was called to let black students into high school, saying in 1957 that “The way they are treating my people in the South the government can go to hell”, subsequently rejecting an offer from the State Department to perform a tour (Megill,