Not giving up on this yet. I've received a response from the superintendent of schools for the Michigan district that Anderson Middle School belongs to. She sent me a copy of the speech she gave right before the concert. Here it is:
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Hello, my name is Tresa Zumsteg and I am the superintendent of the Berkley School District. I would like to welcome you to our wonderful folk music concert this evening. Our students have worked very hard to provide you with a quality performance that demonstrates their ability to sing folk songs from different cultures.

I know that most of you are aware that we had some controversy concerning the song, Pick a Bale of Cotton. And I want to address this issue with you. Whether you believe I made the right decision or not when I pulled the song, I want to share with you my thoughts.

As educators, it is our responsibility to teach children about our history and our culture. Music, of course, plays a very important role in both our history and culture. Sadly, there have been events in our past that have not made us proud. Music reflects our past and our culture for better or for worse.

For this particular concert, our music teachers organized the concert around a folk music theme. Their goals included educating our children regarding the roots of folk music. Folk music is one way for people to remember events that occurred in their history and their culture. Another goal, of course, was for our students to become more skilled in their singing abilities. There was never any intent on the teachers' part nor on this district's part to make any of our students or their families feel uncomfortable.

However, what I have learned in the past couple of days is that while all music has a historical context; music also has a very personal and emotional context.

For example, I find the song Amazing Grace a very comforting song as it was the song played at my mother's passing. My friend, who lost a brother in the 9/11 attacks, finds the song Amazing Grace very painful as it was often the song that accompanied the televised pictures of that awful event. While I find the song a comfort, she finds the song painful. Our personal histories play an important role in how we interpret music.

The song, Pick a Bale of Cotton is a well-known "work song" created by African-Americans during times of slavery. Indeed, famous African-American songster Leadbelly, is the person who made the song famous during the 20th century. It is written that he believed the song to represent strength, endurance and resistance to oppression.

Even acknowledging this history, an individual, because of his personal history, may interpret this song, with its upbeat tempo, as mocking the back breaking work of picking cotton.

I don't believe that we can judge one's personal response that a particular song may evoke. Just as I find the song, Amazing Grace comforting and my friend finds the song painful.   I know as a school district we can certainly define the educational reasons for choosing our musical selections, but I do think we need to be careful not to judge another person's individual response to a song.

I knew with this particular song, Pick a Bale of Cotton that we were not going to be able to eliminate the strong personal responses to this song by describing the history of the song. Keeping the song in the concert would have focused our concert on a controversy that appears to have no quick resolution rather than having the focus on the singing skills of our children. And while I believe very much that we need to continue the discussion on why this song evokes such strong reactions from people and what are the underlying causes for these reactions, I feel that this evening should be for enjoying our children's singing abilities. Thank you.
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Cary here once again,

I've responded to this backsliding by contacting Smithsonian Folkways Records and asking them to forward a copy of a Leadbelly CD with full explanations of the songs to the little girl in care of the middle school. Short of that, I would, with SF's permission, make a CD copy of an early 10" LP Folkways put out after Leadbelly died of some of his seminal songs. The girl should be able to make up her own mind whether or not the songs are racist. She's 11 and already has a good sense of history (4th and 5th graders are already into local and national history). Any African American should be proud of Leadbelly's work in preserving their folk heritage. Their songs had purposes, this one included, and it is something that should be worn as a badge of honor, not swept under the rug because it reminds people of a horrible time in American history. School is supposed to be for education - and education has taken a big hit in this school. We'll see what happens. I'll keep everyone posted.