NAACP to probe removal of hymn

Song was yanked from Spring Cove Middle School chorus concert

Three Blair County NAACP executive board members will proceed with a formal investigation into the decision by Spring Cove School District administrators to remove the hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing" from its middle school chorus concert on May 7.

President Andrae Holsey made the announcement during the branch's monthly meeting on Wednesday evening. He also told the gathered members that the organization's state conference under Legal Redress Committee Chairman Andrew Goudy was formally notified and asked to pass the information onto nationals.

While Holsey did not name anyone, he told members that the district's superintendent and other administrators cited students raising "concern over the divisiveness of that song."

"Curiously enough, in an Altoona Mirror article, a gentleman with the last name of Hershberger spoke up about the discontent of the community in Spring Cove," Holsey said.

"They raised issues, like the fact that minority students already have so little representation in the Cove area -- and as a reminder, this is the same area that Don Witherspoon is from. Claysburg is right around the corner," Holsey said.

He said "it's not a religious issue" as he learned the "concert still started with a hymn."

"It is purely an issue driven by racial dissent," Holsey said.

The local branch will take an "aggressive approach" in seeking out information, Holsey said, and will hold public press conferences "concerning why our anthem could ever be considered divisive, accounting that we have sung it for 101 years."

AASD incidents

The branch has also been alerted to two separate incidents within the Altoona Area School District, one at the junior high school and one at Juniata Gap Elementary, Holsey said.

"We still have some active cases of minority students with IEPs -- autistic students, students with high-level functioning autism and various different learning disabilities -- being physically abused by classmates, and then coerced by higher ranking administrators within their schools," Holsey said. "We are responding to both appropriately."

In other matters, Holsey said that he will be presenting "on the state of racial affairs here in Blair County" to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and Executive Director Chad Lassiter on May 20.

"They are deeply, deeply concerned by the state of affairs here in Blair County," Holsey said.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.