Woody Guthrie Wrote Lyrics Against The Trump Family in The 1950s - The Independent

4/24/2020 Woody Guthrie wrote lyrics against the Trump family in the 1950s | The Independent
SUBSCRIBE NOW LOGIN
News > World > Americas
Woody Guthrie wrote lyrics against the

Trump family in the 1950s
Lyrics were discovered in folk singer's archives in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Will Worley | @willrworley | Monday 1 February 2016 16:30 |
Woody Guthrie with his guitar. The sticker reads 'This machine kills fascists' ( Rex Features )
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/woody-guthrie-wrote-lyrics-against-the-trump-family-in-the-1950s-a6845296.html 1/11
Despite his
SUBSCRIBE NOWwidespread support, Donald Trump has also been the subject of much
LOGIN
vocal resentment during his presidential campaign.
However, it has now emerged his property developer father, Fred Trump, was
also the target of protesting voices.
Woody Guthrie, writer of the classic 'This Land is Your Land' and widely
regarded as the Godfather of American folk, rallied against Trump senior back in
the 1950s.
SUBSCRIBE NOW LOGIN
And new lyrics, discovered by Will Kaufman, Professor of American Literature

and Culture at the University of Central Lancashire, show the great
troubadour's hatred for Fred Trump.
The writings were influenced by Guthrie's experiences in 'Beach Haven', a

Trump-built public housing project. Guthrie, who influenced musicians from Bob
Dylan to Bruce Springsteen, signed the lease for an apartment there in December
1950.
Trump's public housing projects were later subject to a case brought by the Civil
Rights Division of the US Justice Department. A major charge was that “racially
discriminatory
SUBSCRIBE NOW conduct by Trump agents” had “created a substantial impediment
LOGIN
to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity".
A 1979 Village Voice report by Wayne Barrett on the rise of Donald Trump cited
examples of housing applications being "coded by race".
"Three doormen were told to discourage blacks who came seeking apartments
when the manager was out, either by claiming no vacancies or hiking up the
rents," wrote Mr Barrett of the court records.
SUBSCRIBE NOW LOGIN
"A super said he was instructed to send black applicants to the central office but
to accept white applications on site. Another rental agent said that Fred Trump
had instructed him not to rent to blacks. Further, the agent said Trump wanted 'to
decrease the number of black tenants' already in the development 'by
encouraging them to locate housing elsewhere'.”
The Trumps later had to sign an agreement with the government preventing them

from discriminating against anyone in "the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale
or rental of a dwelling," according to the Washington Post.
DAILY CORONAVIRUS BRIEFING
No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

Enter your email address
Continue
Sign up
They were also made to take out advertising informing minorities they had an
equal chance to seek housing at their properties.
Fred Trump was also investigated by the US Senate in 1954 for for profiteering
from public contracts, including overestimating his Beach Haven building charges
by $3.7 million.
Guthrie,NOW
SUBSCRIBE who was a prominent social campaigner, clearly sensed this LOGIN
discrimination during his time at a Trump property, writing:
I suppose
Old Man Trump knows
Just how much
Racial Hate
he stirred up
In the bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed
at color line
Here at his
Eighteen hundred family project ....
In a separate song, Guthrie even reworked the lyrics of one of his most well

known songs, “I Ain’t Got No Home”, into a protest against 'Old Man Trump':
Beach Haven ain't my home!
I just cain't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain!
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach NOW
SUBSCRIBE Haven looks like heaven LOGIN
Where no black ones come to roam!
No, no, no! Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!
Guthrie also wrote in free verse, imploring a "negro girl yonder" to live in his
neighbourhood:
"I welcome you here to live. I welcome you and your man both here to Beach Haven to
love in any ways you please and to have some kind of a decent place to get pregnant
in and to have your kids raised up in. I'm yelling out my own welcome to you."
Donald Trump, who has advocated building a wall on the US - Mexican border to
keep out migrants and proposed a ban on all Muslims from the US, has also been
accused of racism during his presidential campaign.
SUBSCRIBE NOW LOGIN
Read more
Anger and frustration push Donald Trump to “Donald did inherit his
top ahead of Iowa vote
father’s racism, and
was probably actively
coached in his father’s
Trump can be stopped from winning the racism, and worked
Republican nomination with his father to
perpetuate it,”
Mr Kaufman told the
How Donald Trump answers a question - and
Washington Post.
what it tells us about him
Mr Kaufman said
he believed Donald
Trump was "sneakier"
than his father, and
said of Trump's alleged wrongdoing: “It’s not a case of the whole apple not falling
far from the tree. The apple is still connected to the tree.”
Donald Trump has denied that he is racist, once saying on CNN: "I am the least
racist person you have ever met."
MORE ABOUT: DONALD TRUMP
Promoted stories
Expat Living in Indonesia without Health Insurance?

TOP EXPAT INSURANCE | Sponsored
Netflix Users - Access Hundreds of New Titles While Quarantine Using

This Tool

Woody Guthrie Wrote Lyrics Against The Trump Family in The 1950s - The Independent

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Woody Guthrie Wrote Lyrics Against The Trump Family in The 1950s - The Independent

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

4/24/2020 Woody Guthrie wrote lyrics against the Trump family in the 1950s | The Independent

SUBSCRIBE NOW LOGIN

News > World > Americas