Dinah, Put Down Your Horn: Blackface Minstrel Songs Don’t Belong in Music Class

The removal of racist songs from school music programs is long overdue

Title page for “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” in Beatrice Landeck’s ‘Songs to Grow On’ (1950).

Music teachers throughout the United States are quietly removing songs like “Oh! Susanna,” “Jimmy Crack Corn,” and “Camptown Races” from their lesson plans. Educators are realizing that these songs (and many…