Dirt Reynolds – The Day David Duke Came to Destrehan

Dirt Reynolds is the alter-ego of Louisiana native and East Nashville resident Chris Watts. As a young man, he was stabbed in a barfight and a judge told him to join the military. So he did. Then during Hurricane Katrina, he was shot in the Superdome while serving in the National Guard, he went back to college, and began educating himself about political science and re-examining the values he was raised with. His new album, Scalawag is a reflection on southern culture, in all its beauty and its horror.

On October 7, 1974, Destrehan High (now Harry M. Hurst Middle School) sophomore Gary Tyler was on a bus filled with African American high school students. That bus was attacked by a white mob enraged over recent school integration in Destrehan, LA. A shot was fired, and a 13-year-old white kid fell dead on the concrete. Tyler was arrested for disturbing the peace after talking back to a sheriff’s deputy and later beaten severely by police and charged with murdering 13-year-old Timothy Weber.

Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke soon arrived in Destrehan with “security teams” to protect white residents from the expected backlash from a death row case steeped in missing evidence, recanted testimonies, and eventual U.S. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals rulings of unfairness. Good ol’ boy Deep South law and order.

Duke, a former Democrat, would later win a LA state House seat as a born-again Christian on the Republican ticket, and go on to almost defeat Democrat Edwin Edwards for Louisiana governor in 1991. “Vote for the crook, it’s important this time” was Edwards’ ’91 campaign slogan, but being a Democrat alone was a heavy enough crime to a surprising number of Louisiana Republican voters. Heavy enough to vote for a former Klansman and white nationalist.

Duke was charming and charismatic. He spoke his mind and wasn’t afraid to say what some Louisiana voters were thinking. He framed himself as the victim- a victim of the media and career politicians. He used people’s own prejudices and bigotry to play on their fears- the need for “law and order,” fear of “welfare recipients” invading the suburbs, fear of God being taken from the schools. He evoked nostalgia and exploited Christianity. It’s not hard to decipher the code, but his message resonated.

At 16-years-old, Gary Tyler was the youngest person ever on death row in Angola State Prison in 1974, and was released on a plea deal in 2016. Duke’s tactics were not new, however. Unfortunately we still see them today- and the hypocrisy of those they target, which is why I wrote “The Day David Duke Came to Destrehan.”

We had a lot of fun filming this video with director Michael Patti at the band’s favorite neighborhood watering hole, Dee’s Country and Cocktail Lounge in Madison, TN.

-Chris Watts

Get Scalawag on Bandcamp and while you’re at it, check out this great compilation Dirt Reynolds contributed to that will support Stacy Abrams’s Fair Fight Action Organization.