Selma, Alabama - Come by Here

Topic: Political Versions
Guy Carawan’s suggestion for using "Come by Here" in Civil Rights protests was adopted during the 1965 march in Selma, Alabama. He had published it in his section of songs for Voter Registration, [1] and that was the original issue in Selma.

Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that addressed problems of discrimination in public places like busses and lunch counters. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference turned its attention to voter registration, and on 1 February 1965 began a drive in Marion, Alabama. [2] The city was located west of Selma and east of Sumter County where Ruby Pickens Tartt had been on the voter registration panel. [3]

When African Americans were arrested for entering a white restaurant on 2 February, local students protested and stopped attending high school classes. On 18 February, police arrested the SCLC leader to halt the boycott. That evening, as people left Zion Methodist Church to march to the county jail to protect James Orange, police attacked them. One African-American man was hunted down and shot. [4]

Jimmie Lee Jackson died 26 March. On the 28th, an SCLC leader proposed a march from Selma through the town to Montgomery to redirect the anger in Marion. That led to the confrontation on Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma on Sunday, 7 March. By then, white clergymen and other white supporters had arrived from the North. One was killed on 9 March after Martin Luther King halted a second march in compliance with a federal injunction. [5]

While King was applying pressure on the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, and the president, Lyndon Johnson, he also was inviting more outsiders to come South to participate. One was Carl Benkert, an architectural interior designer from Detroit, who arrived with a group of local clergyman. His daughter remembered: "Dr. King called for people to come and he felt moved to do it." [6]

He and other whites were asked to work as night watchmen protecting the gathered masses of marchers. [7] Benkert brought a tape recorder, which he concealed from the police, [8] and turned on during the tense days between the aborted march of 9 March and the successful one that began 21 March. Parts of his tapes later were released by Folkways Records.

The first version of "Come by Here" was recorded 15 March, the same day Johnson sent a draft of the Voting Rights Act to Congress. Police had re-erected a barricade and Hosea Williams had led singing in the Brown A. M. E. Chapel in Selma. Music continued outside. [9]

The tape began while people were singing "Come by Here." A woman started the verses, and the marchers joined as soon as they knew the verse. She used incremental substitution to localize a standard verse when she sang "Wallace needs you," then "we need you." She used the Hightowers’ 1-5 melody.

The second version of "Come by Here" recorded by Benkert was from an organizational meeting held 18 March in the Zion Methodist church. Someone, possibly Orange, [10] moved from song to song while the attendees clapped a strong, unvarying rhythm. The tape began with "This Little Light of Mine," followed by "Which Side Are You On," and a chant for freedom. It ran out before the completion of "Come by Here."

The verses may have been based on Carawan’s "somebody’s starving," but the leader used the three-syllable "people are" instead. The verbs alluded to hard lives in the South (begging, suffering, dying) with some carrying additional implicit references to the current situation. The melody was the Southern one popularized by the Hightowers, not Carawan’s.

Performers
15 March
Song Leader: woman
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

18 March
Song Leader: man
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand claps

Notes on Lyrics
15 March
Language: English
Verses: come by here, need you

Vocabulary:
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Lordy, Lord

Special Terms:

Wallace needs you: George Wallace was governor of Alabama, and refusing to protect the marchers.

18 March
Language: English

Pronunciation: dropped the middle syllable of suffering to fit the line’s meter

Verses: come by here, begging, suffering, dying

Vocabulary:
Pronoun: none, used "people are" instead
Term for Deity: Lord, Lordy

Special Terms: references to local events and problems confronted by Blacks in the South

Both versions
Format: open-ended
Verse Length: 4 lines

Verse Repetition Pattern:
15 March: xAxA
18 March: AxxBBx, where A is "come by here"

Both versions
Line Meter: dactyl
Line Length: 9 syllables
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain

Notes on Music
15 March
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: group

Singing Style: one syllable to one note in unison. One man did sing a harmonic part in places.

Solo-Group Dynamics: woman sang the statement in the first line, and the group joined as soon as they knew the verse and sang every word thereafter. This pattern was repeated with every verse.

18 March
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: group
Singing Style: one syllable to one note in unison

Solo-Group Dynamics: man started the first line without an introduction; group joined in the middle of the second line and sang the rest in unison. No pauses between verses, and people continued singing while the man set the next verses. As a result, it was not clear if everyone was using the same verb.

Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: hand claps were strong and on the first beat of the measures

Notes on Performers
The obituaries for Carl Benkert and his wife have not been posted on-line. What was known from genealogy websites was his grandfather was born in Richmond, Indiana, and moved to Piqua, Ohio, near Dayton. Both Carl and his father were raised there, and both Carl and his wife were buried there. [11]

While Piqua in 2010 was 92.4% white, it had a community of slaves freed by John Randolph in 1833. The most famous favorite sons when Benkert was a child were the Mills Brothers. [12]

He was 17 in 1940, so presumably served in World War II. [13] By the middle 1950s he was working for General Motors’ Styling Section, and had a knack for electronic devices. While the Styling Section was responsible for the exteriors and interiors of automobiles, the head, Harley Earl, also set up a separate design firm. [14] In the 1950s, Benkert designed the table in Earl’s private dining room in the new GM Technical Center with a music console. [15] A few years later he designed the interior furnishings for the new administrative building at the Delco Radio Division in Kokomo, Indiana. [16]

The year before the march in Selma he worked on the interiors of Saint Augustine’s House in Oxford, Michigan. [17] The architect, Glen Paulsen, had worked with Eero Saarinen in the 1950s. [18] Saarinen had been the creative manager of the Tech Center when Benkert worked on Earl’s office suite. It was not known if the religious group Benkert traveled with to Alabama came from this Lutheran monastic retreat, or from his own church, whatever that was.

Availability
Album: Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama. Folkways FW05594. 1965. Liner notes unsigned.

Amazon: has the two versions for sale.

Benkert’s papers, including the original tapes, were donated to the University of Michigan.

The 17 March version was used in the final seconds of Selma. [19] Paramount Pictures released Ava DuVernay’s film on 25 December 2014. [20]

End Notes
1. See posting for 5 October 2017 for more on Carawan.

2. J. Mills Thornton. Dividing Lines. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002. 486.

3. In 1961, Justice Department attorneys concluded Tartt uniformly helped whites to register to vote, but was selective in which Blacks she helped. J. Harold Flannery and Carl Gabel. Memorandum. "R. P. Tartt and Registration Statistics." 20 July 1962. Cited by Brian K. Landsberg. "Sumter County, Alabama and the Origins of the Voting Rights Act." Alabama Law Review 54:877-958:2003. 909.

4. Thornton. 486. The SCLC leader was C. T. Vivian, mentioned in the post for 5 October 2017.

5. Wikipedia. "Selma to Montgomery Marches."

6. Catherine Benkert. Quoted by Roger Catlin. "Listen to the Freedom Songs Recorded 50 Years Ago During the March From Selma to Montgomery." Smithsonian Magazine website, 15 January 2015.

7. Catlin.

8. Catlin.

9. Liner notes.

10. The Liner notes indicated Orange led singing in the church after the meeting broke up. His obituary indicated he was known for his baritone voice. (Atlanta Constitution, 17 February 2008. Cited by Wikipedia, "James Orange," and posted on Legacy website.)

11. America. "Margaret Mary Besanceney Benkert" [his wife] and "Carl Aloysius Benkert, Jr." Find a Grave. 1 November 2014. Carol Johnson. "John Michael Benkert (1864 - 1948)" [his grandfather]. Wiki Tree website. 5 May 2015, last updated 18 May 2015. Carol Johnson. "Julia (Kloeb) Benkert (1864 - 1942)" [his grandmother]. Wiki Tree website. 18 May 2015.

12. Wikipedia. "Piqua, Ohio."

13. "Carl Benkert in the 1940 Census." Ancestry website.

14. "85 Years of GM Design: The Timeline." Car Body Design website. 18 June 2012.

15. United States National Park Service. "General Motors Technical Center." National Historical Landmark Nomination form.

16. Item. The Kokomo [Indiana] Tribune. 27 January 1956. 13.

17. Item. Detroit Free Press. 6 August 1964. 4.

18. "S. Glen Paulsen Papers." Archives. Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

19. Sophie Mayer. "Selma Songs, or Listening to the Language of Changing Times." Glasfryn Project website. 7 May 2015.

20. Wikipedia. "Selma (Film)."