As the KKK approached the tent where Bessie Smith was singing her heart out, their own hearts were filled with hatred. The Klan thought that it would be fun to scare some Black people, but on this steamy July night in 1927, they had no idea who they were dealing with.
Bessie Smith was performing some of her biggest hits in a tent in Concord, North Carolina, but when her crew found the KKK trying to take down the tent, she took them down instead.
Her band members were terrified, but Bessie ran right at the Klansmen and demanded to know what they thought they were doing. And when she ordered them to “pick up them sheets and run,” that is exactly what they did.
Bessie Smith usually used her voice to share her love of blues music, but on that night, she spread a message of defiant resistance. And after she had driven off the Klan, she scolded her band for being afraid.
Bessie Smith’s defiance of the KKK was a show of courage and power against the white terrorism she had seen all her life. All of our voices have that power if we have the courage to use them.