Throughout his long career, Johnny Cash covered “Keep On the Sunny Side” multiple times, sometimes by himself, like on Live at Newport, and sometimes with his wife June. The song has a simple request: keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, keep on the sunny side of life. That’s hard to do right now, in 2017, when the president is celebrating white supremacy.
But there is still good out there.
Rosanne Cash, Johnny and Vivian L. Distin’s first daughter and a talented singer-songwriter in her own right, was alerted that one of the cowardly neo-Nazis roaming the streets of Charlottesville wore a shirt with her dad’s name on it. In a widely-shared Facebook post, Cash, along with Johnny’s other kids, wrote that they were “sickened by the association” and that their father was a “man whose heart beat with the rhythm of love and social justice.”
Here’s the entire message.
A message from the children of Johnny Cash:
We were alerted to a video of a young man in Charlottesville, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi, spewing hatred and bile. He was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the name of Johnny Cash, our father. We were sickened by the association.
Johnny Cash was a man whose heart beat with the rhythm of love and social justice. He received humanitarian awards from, among others, the Jewish National Fund, B’nai Brith, and the United Nations. He championed the rights of Native Americans, protested the war in Vietnam, was a voice for the poor, the struggling and the disenfranchised, and an advocate for the rights of prisoners. Along with our sister Rosanne, he was on the advisory board of an organization solely devoted to preventing gun violence among children. His pacifism and inclusive patriotism were two of his most defining characteristics. He would be horrified at even a casual use of his name or image for an idea or a cause founded in persecution and hatred. The white supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville are poison in our society, and an insult to every American hero who wore a uniform to fight the Nazis in WWII. Several men in the extended Cash family were among those who served with honor.
Our dad told each of us, over and over throughout our lives, ‘Children, you can choose love or hate. I choose love.’
We do not judge race, color, sexual orientation or creed. We value the capacity for love and the impulse towards kindness. We respect diversity, and cherish our shared humanity. We recognize the suffering of other human beings, and remain committed to our natural instinct for compassion and service.
To any who claim supremacy over other human beings, to any who believe in racial or religious hierarchy: we are not you. Our father, as a person, icon, or symbol, is not you. We ask that the Cash name be kept far away from destructive and hateful ideology.
We Choose Love.
Rosanne Cash
Kathy Cash
Cindy Cash
Tara Cash
John Carter Cash
Keep on the sunny side, folks.
(Via Facebook)
