King Cole croons his way into history

Home Culture King Cole croons his way into history
King Cole croons his way into history
Nat King Cole | WikiMedia

When Nat King Cole moved into a rich, predominantly white neighborhood in Los Angeles in 1948, he received many housewarming gifts—including a burning cross in his front yard from the Ku Klux Klan.

As recounted in a biography of the famous jazz composer Nelson Riddle, the local property owners association told Cole they didn’t want any “undesirables” living in their part of town. Cole agreed.

“Neither do I,” he said to the group of men. “And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I’ll be the first to complain.”

Cole’s soft, baritone voice has now become timeless. It’s heard as families gather around the tree every December with his recording of “The Christmas Song” floating through the winter air. It’s heard as travelers drive the lone highway from Chicago to California and the radio of a convertible Mustang blasts “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.” And it’s heard as two lovers dance as husband and wife, as the wedding DJ plays “Unforgettable” over a pair of portable speakers.

But in his time, many didn’t cherish his voice, simply because they couldn’t see past the color of his skin. Cole would encounter racism and criticism throughout his musical career, even from fellow African-Americans.

Despite being a native Southerner—he was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1919—the most notable moment of discrimination that Cole experienced in his singing career came in 1956, when he came back to the Cotton State.

As he was playing a show in Birmingham, Alabama, three men from a white supremacy group began passing around pictures of Cole with his white female fans. They emblazoned the photos with captions such as “Cole and his white women” and “Cole and your daughter.”

The same men circulating the photos attempted to rush the stage midway through the performance, causing Cole to fall from his piano bench and seriously injure his back. According to an eyewitness account published later in the Birmingham News, the local police stopped the men before they could capture or harm the singer, and they arrested them.

“I can’t understand it,” Cole said in the wake of the assault. “I have not taken part in any protests. Nor have I joined an organization fighting segregation. Why should they attack me?”

That was the last time that Cole ever played in the South, but he still continued to play concerts for all-white audiences. As a result, notable voices in the anti-segregation movement condemned Cole. The Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper, called his performances for all-white crowds an “insult to their race.” Thurgood Marshall, then the legal counsel for the NAACP and later an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme court, called him Uncle Tom. A writer in The American Negro, said he was a traitor to his fellow blacks.

But Cole continued to use his voice to show he was not only color blind, but also bipartisan. Later that year in 1956, he sang at The Republican National Convention during General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s nomination, and four year laters he sang at the 1960 Democratic National Convention to endorse Senator John F. Kennedy. He would later be an advisor on civil rights to presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Cole died in 1965, though he lived to see the Civil Rights Act pass in Congress a year earlier. Despite criticism from white supremacists as well as black music critics, Cole’s legacy has had the last laugh. During his life he recorded more than 150 singles that topped charts for country, Billboard Pop, and R&B for Capitol Records. To this day, no one has matched those numbers for Capitol Records.

And despite those efforts to kick him off stage in Birmingham, Cole was later inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

The elements of institutional racism eventually faded, but Cole’s voice lives through politics, race, and time.