Jason Aldean’s new music video was filmed at a lynching site. A big country music network pulled it

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

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July 19, 2023

Maria Sherman, AP News

Jason Aldean performs during CMA Fest 2022 in Nashville, TN (Amy Harris/AP)

Country music star Jason Aldean ‘s latest music video for “Try That In A Small Town,” lasted just one weekend on Country Music Television before the network pulled it in response to an outcry over its setting and lyrics.

In the video, Aldean — who has been awarded country music artist of the decade by the Academy of Country Music — performs in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee. This is the site of the 1946 Columbia race riot and the 1927 mob lynching of an 18-year-old Black teenager named Henry Choate.

Aldean’s video, which was released last Friday, has received fervent criticism online, with some claiming the visual is a “dog whistle” and others labeling it “pro-lynching.”

Interspersed between performance footage of Aldean are news clips of violent riots and flag burning. A Fox News chyron reads: “State of emergency declared in Georgia.”

“Cuss out a cop, spit in his face / Stomp on the flag and light it up / Yeah, ya think you’re tough,” Aldean, who is from Macon, Georgia, sings. “Got a gun that my granddad gave me / They say one day they’re gonna round up / Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck / Try that in a small town.” […]

The video and its subsequent removal from CMT quickly blew up into one of the periodic culture war clashes, with several conservative figures speaking out in favor of Aldean — including Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert.

This isn’t the first time Aldean has been at the center of controversy. In 2015, he made headlines for dressing as rapper Lil Wayne as a Halloween costume, wearing blackface makeup and a wig with dreadlocks.

Read more about the controversy in the original article.

Explore this exhibit to learn more about the horrific history of lynchings in the United States.

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