The Ghost of Orval Faubus

The Ghost of Orval Faubus
©2023 Gene Reid
The South is not the Confederacy. The Confederacy was not the South. The Confederacy was a cabal of very rich, politically powerful men who ordered young men under their sway to take up arms against what they regarded as the deep state of their day. They stirred up the people who depended on them for leadership and protection and in the end over a quarter million young southern men never returned to their homes and families. I honor the South, including those young men who died for those rich men's ambitions. I have no use for the Confederacy that ordered those young men to impale themselves on the horns of an obscene and evil cause.
This song, “The Ghost of Orval Faubus,” is a reference to the 1957 school integration crisis at Little Rock’s Central High School when Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to deploy and prevent nine black teenagers from entering Central High to attend class because they were black. President and former five star U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhauer sent in the 101st Airborne Division and federalized the guard with orders to stand down. Orval Faubus invoked the Confederacy in an attempt to keep the foot of a dead cabal on the neck of the oppressed. The treachery and treasonous bigotry he embraced are alive today but the South is not the Confederacy. The Confederacy was not the South.

The Ghost of Orval Faubus
©2022 Gene Reid
There's a cafe down in Little Rock where politicians go
they talk about the old days like it was a week ago
they say that Orval Faubus build a mansion on a hill
and in the halls of power, his ghost is walking still.

Chorus
The ghost of Orval Faubus walks the streets of Arkansas
Every time a black man is shoved against a wall.
Every time a rebel flag unfurls in the wind
the ghost of Orval Faubus walks again

There's Rich Folks up in Bentonville; they love to call the Hogs
They dress up red on game days with their million-dollar dogs
they love the Ten Commandments, they love their rebel flags
they'll tell you all those liberals are just a bunch of fags.

Chorus
The ghost of Orval Faubus walks the streets of Arkansas
Every time a gay man is shoved against a wall.
Every time a rebel flag unfurls in the wind
the ghost of Orval Faubus walks again

Instrumental

I love the South but have no doubt that Confederacy
was just the work of sad old men enslaved to slavery
(and there's) fools that want to tell me that ain’t what it was about
but it was the very worst thing ever happened to the South.

Chorus
The ghost of Orval Faubus walks the streets of Arkansas
Every time a woman is slammed against a wall.
Every time a rebel flag unfurls in the wind
the ghost of Orval Faubus walks again
the ghost of Orval Faubus walks again
the ghost of Orval Faubus.