ROUSES_SeptOct2019_Magazine

r-e-s-p-e-c-t by michael tisserand

Recorded on Valentine’s Day 1967, Aretha Franklin’s iconic soul song “Respect” became an anthem for both the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements. That summer, it could be heard from hi-fis and transistor radios throughout a burning season of social, political and racial upheaval. If any song could be said to have it all, it might be “Respect.” “There are songs that are a call to action,” the record’s producer, Jerry Wexler, later wrote. “There are love songs. There are sex songs. But it’s hard to think of another song where all those elements are combined.”

college and throughout South Louisiana. “I find it inconceivable that Negro students at USL would object to the song ‘Dixie,’” wrote one woman to the Crowley newspaper, adding that those students must be “still fighting the Civil War.” The Lafayette Daily Advertiser ran an editorial extolling the old minstrel song as a work of art that “transcends sectionalism and prejudices.” White credits Blanco with defusing the situation. “It starts at the top. Under Coach Blanco’s leadership, University of Southwestern Louisiana became very progressive, very accepting of the culture and music that African-Americans brought the school.” Which brings the story back to the Sweethearts and “Respect.” Former University of Southwestern Louisiana student Chuck Allen would attend football games in the mid-1960s, and still remembers how the band would celebrate a touchdown run by playing “Dixie.” Allen noticed a change two years later when he returned to school following a tour in Vietnam. He was at a game, sitting with the Theta Xi fraternity next to the band, and they started chanting, “We want ‘Respect!’ he says. “It lifted our hearts. It was something no other school had.” “It came out at the right time,” adds former student Claude Revels. “The entire school just embraced it. Now I don’t think of Louisiana without thinking of ‘Respect.’” Godfrey White went on to remain active in politics and social issues, including serving in Kathleen Blanco’s administration. “It’s incredible to me that we were able to break those barriers at USL without any major conflict or negative demonstration,” he says. “Respect” remains part of the musical and cultural fabric of University of Louisiana Lafayette. But these days, Sherry LeBas admits with a laugh, she stops herself from trying out the steps she helped choreograph — so she doesn’t throw out a hip. Yet she can vividly remember the magic and excitement of hearing the band hit the song’s first notes, of taking the field, of a stadium filled with students thunderously clapping along, as if all one body. “It’s an all-encompassing song,” LeBas says. “It hits on all cylinders, and for all the right reasons.”

At the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana Lafayette), it also became a wildly popular football song. And when it did, it played its role in bringing respect to this small Southern college and the region, at a time when it needed it most. This story of “Respect” begins with two sisters and Opelousas dance teachers — Kathy Daly and Toni Wiley — who were refashioning the college’s Sweethearts dance team, designing new costumes and headpieces, and choreographing new songs. They chose “Respect” as their debut number, which they performed at a USL halftime show in 1967. “The student body went crazy for it,” remembers Sherry LeBas, who started with the Sweethearts that year and soon became choreographer and, later, part of the college’s athletics staff. The Sweethearts brought a copy of Aretha Franklin’s recording to Jack Arceneaux, director of USL’s Pride of Acadiana marching band, and he wrote out a new arrangement. “Kudos to Jack, who took the pop song off the record and wrote it for all the instruments,” LeBas says. It was a new thing for USL students, hearing a hit record performed at their football games, and it became a school sensation. As it turns out, the timing could not be better. At this same juncture in the late 1960s, another school musical tradition was starting to come under scrutiny. When Godfrey White transferred to USL from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, he became the first African- American student to start and letter on the college’s football team. Yet whenever he scored a touchdown, he’d hear the school band

striking up its traditional fight song, “Dixie.” Celebrating his accomplishment with the anthem of the Confederacy didn’t feel right. “It was throwing me off,” White remembers now. “The symbolism of it. That’s actually one of the reasons I discontinued playing football.” White took time away from sports to devote his efforts to school integration struggles then boiling over in his hometown of New Iberia. In 1970, he was elected treasurer of USL’s Student Government Association, the first African-American student voted by students to one of the college’s top offices. Remembering his experience on the football field, he and other student leaders brought their concerns

about “Dixie” to Raymond Blanco — White’s old football assistant coach who had become Dean of Men at the school.

Dropping “Dixie” from the band’s repertoire was controversial, both in the

67

ROUSES

WWW.ROUSES.COM