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Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon "Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon" was a song written by Will A. Heelan, and J. Fred Helf that was popular in the United States and the United Kingdom. The song followed the previous success of "All Coons Look Alike to Me", written in 1896 by Ernest Hogan. H. L. Mencken cites it as being one of the three coon songs that "firmly established the term coon in the American vocabulary". The song was a musical hit for A. M. Rothschild and Company in 1901.[2] New York's Siegel Cooper Company referred to it as one of their greatest hits the following April.[3] The next month it was sung during "Music on the Piers" in New York, becoming the first song played at the Metropolitan Avenue pier.[4] In his book The Movies That Changed Us: Reflections on the Screen, Nick Clooney refers to the song as part of the "hit parade" of popular music one could use to measure the temper of the times when The Birth of a Nation premiered in 1915.[5] It was also Marie Dressler's contribution to the 'coon' genre.[6] Lottie Gilson, Williams and Walker, Frances Curran, Hodges and Launchmere, Libby and Bennett, Zoa Matthews, Johnnie Carroll, Clarice Vance, Gerie Gilson, Joe Bonnell, The Eldridges and "100 other artists" sang the song with "overwhelming success", according to its sheet music. The song motivated the creation of the Pan-African flag in 1920 by the members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.[7] In a 1927 report of a 1921 speech appearing in the Negro World weekly newspaper, Marcus Garvey was quoted as saying,[8]
The lyrics to "Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon" include the musical meme "four eleven forty four".
And said, “When we were on parade today I really felt so much ashamed, I wished I could turn white ‘Cause all the white folks march’d with banners gay Just at de stand de German band They waved their flag and played ‘De Wacht am Rhine’ The Scotch Brigade each man arrayed In new plaid dresses marched to ‘Auld Lang Syne’ Even Spaniards and Sweeds, folks of all kinds and creeds Had their banner except de coon alone Ev’ry nation can brag ‘bout some kind of a flag Why can’t we get an emblem of our own?” Chorus: For Ireland has her Harp and Shamrock England floats her Lion bold Even China waves a Dragon Germany an Eagle gold Bonny Scotland loves a Thistle Turkey has her Crescent Moon And what won’t Yankees do for their Red, White and Blue Every race has a flag but the coon He says, “Now I’ll suggest a flag that ought to win a prize Just take a flannel shirt and paint it red They draw a chicken on it with two poker dice for eyes An’ have it wavin’ razors ‘round its head You might also like To make it quaint, you’ve got to paint A possum with a pork chop in his teeth To give it tone, a big hambone You sketch upon a banjo underneath And be sure not to skip just a policy slip Have it marked four eleven forty four Then them Irish and Dutch, they can’t guy us so much We should have had this emblem long before” References
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