A Horrible Official’s Hatred of Jazz Music
Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, who held that job for 32 years and spearheaded the criminalization of drugs, was an awful person. An extreme racist and bigot, even by his era’s standards, Anslinger demonized racial minorities and immigrants. He also hated jazz, a mongrel music of African, Caribbean, and European origins mating on American soil. It was the opposite of all that Anslinger believed in. He thought it was musical anarchy, and proof of primitive impulses in black people, about to erupt. As he described it in internal memos: “It sounded like the jungles in the dead of night“.
Anslinger also believed that marijuana made people insane. That combined with his racism to produce a toxic mix. He once stated: “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men“. Jazz musicians habitually smoked the stuff, and their music sounded freakish to his ears. So he saw jazz as proof that marijuana caused insanity, and targeted jazz musicians. He wrote his agents to: “prepare all cases in your jurisdiction involving musicians in violation of the marijuana laws. We will have a great national round-up arrest of all such persons in a single day“. When congressmen questioned his vendetta, he reassured them that his crackdown focused not on: “the good musicians, but the jazz type“. Billie Holiday was one of his main targets.
