The most controversial race-related event that occurred during Reagan‘s campaign in Louisiana happened when the California governor spoke at LSU in Baton Rouge on September 23. Approximately 175 Southern University students protested their school band‘s performance at the event because contractual obligations forced the band members to play against their will. Some students temporarily blocked the band‘s busses from leaving campus. One student said, "How come Ronald Reagan couldn‘t come to Southern? Southern does not support Ronald Reagan. By playing at the rally, it shows the world we support him. We do not." Vernon English, a member of the United People Organization on Southern‘s campus, criticized the band‘s involvement at the event by saying, "[Southern‘s administrators] were being pulled and puppeted around…They gave us (the band) uniforms for our looks, but what about our books? They‘re trying to say 'Keep us as entertainers, but not as leaders.‘ We‘re being made fools out of."
Southern‘s campus police cleared the protestors, and the band performed at the LSU rally. Reagan acknowledged their presence and commended them for attending. While there were no protests on LSU‘s campus, the Southern University‘s Weekly Digest claimed, "it was heard (at the LSU Assembly Center) that some of the audience said that white people like to see niggers clown. The paper also explained that while some LSU students supported Southern‘s protest, jeers greeted Southern students who attended the rally to protest and chant slogans referring to the band‘s presence. Southern‘s authorities prohibited band members from commenting on the event once they returned to campus.
According to The Daily Reveille, Governor Treen initially invited the LSU Tiger Band to perform at Reagan‘s event, but LSU band director Frank Wickes declined. Wickes explained that he lacked the authority to excuse band members from classes and could not accommodate the performance with the burden of work and practice the band faced. Due to the Tiger Band‘s unavailability, Treen contacted Southern‘s band director, Dr. Isaac Greggs, to have his band perform.
Both ABC and CBS covered the Southern University protest during their nightly newscasts using footage from WBRZ and WAFB, Baton Rouge‘s ABC and CBS affiliates, respectively. ABC/WBRZ‘s coverage of the protest was brief and included no sound bites from any Southern protestor or anyone from Reagan‘s team about the event. The news footage showed one student lying on the ground in front of a car and then kicking police officers and other students who came close to him. ABC reporter Barry Serafin noted that Reagan praised the band‘s courage for attending the event.
CBS and WAFB presented better footage and commentary on the Southern Band protest. Beginning with a shot of a poster reading, "we are not Reagan supporters." reporter Bruce Hall said that about 200 Southern students protested the band‘s performance. He said that some students explained that campus police used mace to disperse the crowd and that the students were chanting, "We are not backing Reagan, and we are not going to allow our band to be forced to play at a Reagan speech" .CBS included a sound bite from English, who said, "98 percent of the band did not want to go [but went] because of scholarships, BEOG (Basic Educational Grants), work study jobs, they was manipulated into going." In a separate interview, John Cade stated that neither he nor anyone connected to Reagan‘s campaign coerced Southern‘s band to attend. The news coverage ended with a shot of the band performing with band director Greggs enthusiastically smiling and clapping.
Despite Cade‘s assurance that neither he nor anyone in Reagan‘s campaign coerced Southern‘s band to perform, some in the state viewed the Southern band‘s protest as another Reagan blunder. The Winn Parish Enterprise viewed the band‘s presence as a ploy to drum up black support for Reagan, criticizing the performance as "window-dressing at a rally that was attended by only a handful of blacks in a crowd of several thousand" that "smacks of tokenism to the state‘s black voters." Furthermore, the paper viewed blunders like the Southern band fiasco as hindering Reagan‘s opportunity to build a surmountable lead against ―perhaps the most incompetent president in modern times."
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-03302011-144750/unrestricted/cailletthesis.pdf
