I used to say I like every kind of music except Country. That was until my good friend Steve Abel made me sit down and listen to ‘Johnny Cash at San Quentin’, recorded live at the infamous prison. I was an instant fan.
So when “Walk the Line”, the Johnny Cash biopic, was released in 2005 I was eager to see it. I thought it was a great movie, with some brilliant scenes, like the one where Ma and Pa Carter see off Cash’s dealer with shotguns as he quits cold turkey. They seemed to epitomise the best of White Southern Christian Decency, in contrast to the usual treatment we see of Southern hypocrisy, malice and racist cruelty.
The romance between Johnny Cash and June Carter was of course the main thread of the movie. It winds around his protracted wooing of her and ends with a caption celebrating their 35 year partnership on and off stage after she finally agrees to marry him. His first wife Vivian is portrayed as a woman just never suited to be his wife and who drove him away with her bitterness, jealousy and resentment. I remember idly wondering what she was really like, and whether this was a fair portrayal of her character, as the story moved back to his great love for June.
Watching the movie for a second time the other day I was again swept up in what a nasty, bitter woman Vivian was, even as another part of my mind again questioned the representation. In the garden with my wife the following day, we began deconstructing the movie as we worked. As we talked through different elements of the plot, I began to feel more and more uneasy. Later I decided to google Vivian Cash. I found a review of her book ‘I Walked the Line’, written after the film came out. Not surprisingly it gave a very different story to the film, suggesting that their marriage had been very happy until June stole John away. What WAS surprising, though, was when I looked at photos of Vivian. Turns out that she was a black woman.
You’d never know from reading any of the articles about her.
You’d certainly never know from watching the movie, where she is played by Ginnifer Goodwin.
In fact the only thing I found in my admittedly brief search that referenced her ethnicity was a newspaper headline from when he was busted for drugs that says “ARREST EXPOSES JOHNNY CASH’S NEGRO WIFE”. Presumably exposes her for the sin of being black in the USA.
Interestingly, in contrast to the newspaper article from the time, the film shows him leaving court alone and coming home to her censorious displeasure. It is shortly after this arrest that the chronology of the film shows them separating.
I’d noticed before that there are almost no black people in the film. Two shoe shiners are the sum total are far as I remember. I imagine the director, James Mangold, justifies this by saying that there are no black characters who are important to the story. That is if you don’t include his first wife.
Suddenly the treatment of Vivian makes complete sense. In the world of American Country music, of course the black woman is the villain of the story – even when her husband leaves her and her four daughters for another woman. June and John are considered one of the most iconic couples in country music history, and no black woman is going to undermine that narrative. Her character has to be destroyed. But even that is not enough. Her very identity is robbed from her, made invisible by whitewash.
They say that black is not a colour, it is the absence of light. That certainly seems to be true in Hollywood.
EDIT: I have been asked in some of the comments to withdraw my post because Vivian’s birth certificate and recorded genealogy state that she is white. I will not do so, for two reasons:
1. Regardless of what was written on her documents, it is apparent to many of us (especially those of us of mixed ancestry ourselves) that she is black / mixed (there must be a better word for that). This is an opinion based on every single photo of her to be found. There is a one photo from later in life which some say shows that she is white. I guess if you don’t have elderly multiracial friends or family (and ignore every other photo of her) you might think so but it is not convincing. There are numerous possible explanations for the discrepancy between her official papers and her appearance, many of them outlined in the comments.
2. Given the effort made in the movie to try to cast actors who resembled their characters, casting Ginnifer Goodwin for someone who is at the very least ethnically ambiguous is still whitewashing. Her ethnicity was important to their story, as evidenced by the attacks upon them both.
Ethnicity and racism are very touchy subjects to be sure. I have never had such interest in a post, and almost exclusively from North America. Why? Perhaps the USA needs some kind of national reconciliation process to help it deal with the trauma and shame of its past.
——————————————————————————
As of 13 May 2020 I am closing the comments because a growing number of posters from the USA are getting increasingly abusive of each other.
Monkey Business 
Big Johnny Cash was down with the swirl, Wow!!
Get your facts straight. She was a Mexican-American woman he met in San Antonio when he was in the Air Force. She was NOT African-American. The news story is fake race baiting. All you’ve done is pick out some black and white photos which are deceptive. The worst piece of fake journalism of the day. A really wretched attempt to stir up racial animosity. Pathetic.
What about the book Vivian wrote? I’m sure she would tell her race in her own story
I’m confused. Why are you people assuming Italian means white? You can just as easily be a black Italian.
Mikoniko, you are correct. I met a school principal in N.Y many years ago that was from Sicily and how was brown skin and curly hair. My neighbor Mary many years later, ( she was Italian) would tell me I looked so Siciliano, so there are people of color in every race and in every country!!!
A day that comes from Arab influence
That is the Arab influence
Every Race? Dont you mean every nationality? For there is only One Race. The Human Race.
So, on the census form, the Siciliano choses “black” or “negro”?
The proximity of Africa to so many other countries attributed to such mixtures. I only in America is darker skin and curly hair frowned upon so. The woman was extremely beautiful, regardless of what nationality. It is stll surprising as to why this was a hidden fact, does not matter her nationality.
Their are black Irish also but they are not black in color.Jstmerue8@gmail.com j
That was the funniest thing ive ever heard. The irish had black ancestry. Which was the main reason they were treated lower than slaves when they came to america. Lower than a slave. Did you know fredrick douglas went to ireland and the people begged him to stop their oppression. There are monuments in the country in honor of him. And that was after a few generations of blacks being white washed out they still treated the people that way. I present to u facts. Look it up. You see, in order to enslave and take the identity of a people you must brainwash people to ignore fact and scientifically go with thier emotion.
Queen Charlotte of england waa Black look it up
She was black. If the klan caught her on the road do u think her saying her father was italian would have stopped her from being lynched. Think not. I love it how u folks will try to justify anything. Whats wrong with her being black??? Would it be a big deal if she was? The answer to that question is the truth of your heart. And the reason why cash could not love who he wanted. You are the reason why. This had to be reported all the way from new zealand. Shame on all of us so called americans from the melting pot. They call america an experiment. I think the experiment is if u had people of color on a land and intergrated some whites, who would remain the aggressors, the natives or the visitors. Well slavery of blacks and chinese, slaughter of indians, and the continued jerry mandering and voter suppression gives us that answer. Please know that although i dont agree with u, i will fight for you right to have your opinion. So blessings to you, johnny, vivian, her italian father, and her black mother (which everyone wants to erase). The rule was if you had 1/10th black blood then you were black. Not my rules, that was the law. Thank you for listening.
“The irish had black ancestry. Which was the main reason they were treated lower than slaves when they came to america. Lower than a slave.”
This verges on white supremacist propaganda, the myth of Irish slavery is prominent in far-right circles, although it’s usually framed as “white Irish were slaves too” rather than claiming they were treated “lower than slaves.”
View at Medium.com
You are so correct and I am glad you have said it, saying her dad was any thing other than black still would not of helped her from their ignorance and might have caused my danger for her father as well.
*much danger not my. Also it is sad that this had to be publicized by another country. I’m in awe that we are now in 2017 and we still have this ignorance brewing and stewing! Shame on all who still carries a torch for this foolishness, remember one day you all will reap what you all have sown!
This is the country where the White descendants denied for the longest time that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his wife’s half sister Sally Hemings. Then through DNA evidence they finally had to acknowledge the truth.
She was phonetically and culturally Black. Knock it off. At that time in America bi-racial meant not White. There is no excuse for them portraying her as White except racism.
Love your writings…..
Not quite sure when I would have a curiosity about the ethnicity of the various people you have named? It sounds like you’re criticizing a lack of a fund of knowledge including this info. I’m confused, and curious. Can you explain?
Peace and love for your lucidity.
Amen. Well said.
Thank you for speaking the truth, ‘LifeAsWeKnowIt”, from a 63 year old black American.
Many people do not realize that there is a historical connection between Italy and Ethiopia. There was some intermingling and marriages between the two peoples.
Vivian was of Mexican descent, not African American- though it really shouldn’t matter either way. If you want information, why don’t you interview Vivian’s daughter- you know her as Roseanne Cash.
She was black. Look at her. She couldnt pass a paperbag test. I dont care if she was italian, mexican, german or english, sir. You know they have black folks in all those places. Please search the olmecs. Blacks who lived in MEXICO. SMH.
Thank you….
Their are black Mexicans , Black Russians , black Japanese every single spot on the populated planet. If her daughter doesn’t know or accept that, sad but true . Check the history.
There are a couple if million black people in Mexico. Yes, Mexico had African slave also
@Alchemist True but the Olmecs preceded Christopher Columbus and the slave trade.
A slave ship went astray and landed there the State of Chapus (sp) is where you will find most Black Mexicans. This day and age who cares as there are so many mictures that who knows what they really are with out DNA testing. I’m just glad to be here!
Because she was Mexican, does not preclude her having African ancestry. West Africans were brought to Mexico as part of the diaspora.
Maybe you are not aware of the black Mexican population . Afromexicans are real.
No one said African American. They said black. There is a difference!!
This has certainly altered my view of Johnny Cash. Not about white in America.
Except she wasn’t black. She was Italian. He talks about this misconception in his autobiography. Plenty of examples of white washing but this isn’t one of them.
bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha
OK THEN!
“I ain;t Black, I’m OJ.” Jay-Z, The Story of OJ, 4:44 Album, 2017
“OK”
He had to leave her because he was a country singer. His audience would not accept that during the jim crow era or even now. He did what he had to do to protect her and their children. Simply put. This is amazing. Stop white washing her. Simply put if her father was Sicilian she has black blood because the moors were BLACK! We dont need to watch The Godfather or Goodfellas to know in order to be a made man in the mafia you had to be Sicilian on both sides. Which is a testament that they were proud of their bloodline. Its ok. Johnny Cash loved and married a black woman. Its ok, man. Its ok. 😉
Let’s just forget the fact that the movie was about Johnny and as all Hollywood biographies do, needed to portray him as the good guy and therefore justify his reasoning for leaving Vivian. Then let’s ignore the fact that if they used that as a basis for the story and cast a black actress that SJWs would still have the same problem because then a black woman would be depicted as the villain. There’s no winning, is the point. So if they did whitewash Vivian, the point was to avoid the ire of social justice advocates. It can’t be done, people will look for any reason to be offended.
Because everything you just described is offensive.
How about just telling the truth? That’s how this is all dispelled, and, yes, someone will always find a reason to be offended. You just did.
Vivian is not black. She’s Italian-American. This entire story is detailed in my new book The Man Who Carried Cash, about Johnny and his manager Saul Holiff. This “article” that is referenced above is a photo taken from the original Saul Holiff collection of materials. The “article” is from the Thunderbolt, a far-right rag that had direct ties to the KKK. They mistakenly thought Vivian was black from an AP photo that was printed in the newspaper after Cash left an arraignment at the courthouse for his El Paso drug smuggling arrest. It’s an interesting story because it caused the KKK to attack Johnny for two years. Read my book for the full accurate story. Saul fought the KKK with Johnny, they endured attacks and bomb threats and death threats. Saul finally got a copy of her birth certificate and sent it to them. There is some speculation it perhaps didn’t matter to them and they may have been attacking Johnny because of his public support of Native Americans. But all of it is in the manager’s vast archive of records, which I used for the book. Saul also said it was ridiculous that they had to even prove it because he regretted the optics of making it appear as though there was anything wrong with being black (if she was), but at the end of the day, she wasn’t. I agree that she was very inaccurately and unfairly represented in Walk The Line though.
Ahhh, keep telling yourself that. She may be Italian all right, but that Sistah that Sistah right there is BLACK!! Italian American, OK. Y’all white folls vrack me up picking and choosing who you want to claim and disclaim. The Good people of Virginia didn’t want to claim the offspring of Thomas Jefferson, until a family member said, them’s our kin. Storm Thurmond, segregationist, fathered a Black Daughter, President Barack Obama, reviled by Racist Whites, despite his Irish mother, God forbid, a precious country icon fall for and marry a Black Woman. Well pictures don’t lie, she may be Italian, but she’s a Black Italian!!!
THANK YOU PATTY!
Yes. Italians and Ethiopians have some shared history (Italy occupied Ethiopia in the 1930s, and some Italians were living there long before that as well).
You’re right about that. But let’s not forget that the whole human race emerged out of blackest Africa and populated the 4 corners of Earth. 99% of arguments here are thus moot.
There are Black Italians! Italian isn’t a race. It is a nationality and ANYONE born in Italy is an Italian. That goes for Black and multiracial people (mixed with Black). I dated a very dark Italian that looked a great deal like an Indian from India. He was the N-word in Italy growing up.
The woman in those images is black and any Italian or Sicilian looking at it would agree. The racial politics of the time had light skinned black folks claiming to be everything from Portuguese to Turkish for the sake of survival, e.g. Melungeons. Just because a birth certificate stated a person was white, doesn’t mean they were white. In a lot of cases, it meant they were passing. Paperwork alone isn’t proof of racial lineage. It’d be interesting to see what a DNA test reveals.
There is one thing that black people know for sure…and that’s other black people. Why y’all can’t see it is mystifying.
Ok So cash was a low down scujmbag either way didnt support his children
Good, Bad or Indifferent. Just did a quick Ancestry search on Vivian and her family. According to her birth records and 1940 census, her family was listed as white with southern European ancestry. Her Uncle was a Catholic priest that married her and Johnny Cash. Vivian’s maiden name is Liberto and her Grandfather was born in Sicily in 1874.
Granted, it is well known that Sicilian’s intermarried with North Africans during several points in Mediterranean history, thereby leaving recent African genetic material within the communities that inhabited Italy.
So imagine if Vivian’s DNA was tested she would show a percentage of North African
lineage. However she is not African-American, nor are her and Johnny’s children.
But I will admit she was a lovely looking woman with gorgeous Mediterranean features that any man would have been lucky to have been married to and sired very beautiful daughters.
How can so many of you people be this ignorant? I have a friend who is white (and Jewish) who’s parents are from Egypt. He was raised in America; does that make him African-American? No. It makes him a white American. Vivian was a black person. Makes no fucking difference what her blood work says. Deal with it, end of story.
I have never in my 66yrs seen a white person
This is a damned shame. I had no idea Cash was married to an African American woman. Thanks for sharing this article. And i did see the movie twice.
Not African American……but she was black
Please remember that in the South, including Texas, interracial marriage was illegal until 1967. By law, Vivian Liberto was white when they married in 1954, whatever her Mediterranean roots.
Incredible to me how many people (likely white) in this thread are arguing against her potential blackness – as if there is something wrong with it. Or some kind of misinformation. I am clearly black, but am listed as white on my birth certificate because I was born very light and my mother is very mixed/light-skinned. That is the assumption doctors made back in the day. And the rampant racism in this country fed the need to “pass” and hid a lot of racial mixing. ….The pics don’t lie. You can clearly see that Vivian is mixed race and one of those races is black – whether she “identified” that way or not.No one can say, not even Vivian (short of DNA testing) how much African blood is in her veins. But again, the pics don’t lie. And social history is what it is. So, denying even the possibility of it is just another maddening form of racism….
Exactly! !
I just need to copy and paste your comment on all these people searching hard to prove she wasn’t what Stevie damn Wonder could see!
I agree..even if she supposedly italian..doubt it though..that boot is still very close to Africa..therefore…..lol
Yep! My parents are both straight up dark, brown skinned Central Americans and my ethnicity is listed as “white” on my Cali birth certificate because “Hispanic/Latino” wasn’t even considered an ethnic identity at the time, much less indigenous. I get so brown in the summers other kids would make fun of me for being “blacker” than some African-American students (and I used to get sad about) and in retrospect sucks was even used as an insult/source of shame. Those who deny racial categories affect kids are in denial!
Agree totally!
Ironically Black “absorbs” light as opposed to white which “repeals” light. That in of itself could be a metaphor for a certain interpretation when the metaphor “light” represent righteousness. Personally I have always like Johnny Cash and his reason for divorcing his first (Black) wife could have several reasons including irreconcilable differences and most important during that period, intolerance toward racial mixed marriage. I’m sure if Cash had remained married to that Black woman his music career would not have been as iconic. As far as Hollywood is concern like the movies it creates, there is nothing there of value in my opinion. Black folks should never look to Hollywood for validation and if they do they actually ‘invalidate’ their real worth. I appreciate this article because “truth” rose to the top and “light” was revealed although we know that “white” repeal “light”.
I always thought something was wrong with this story but I couldn’t put my finger on it well I can honestly say now I feel a lot better and knowing that I wasn’t alone and knowing tempting was wrong when they just erase the woman and four children or when he had nothing it was nobody no wife Melinda nobody else had time for him and especially after he started using drugs but a black woman was willing to tolerate stay with him and endure he made it unbearable to live with him so I understand but I don’t understand how they could erase her color because she was who she is and that’s who she’s going to be even when she’s dead she’s still a black woman alive or dead she still a black woman married to Johnny Cash Johnny Cash I hope her family got any royalties that was due her her great great great great grandchildren even should get royalties for now and that’s a good thing Billy only blasted probably got anything that I know about if they got anything because I’m still waiting for anything for my family yesterday great-great-great-grandparents all we got is what we pay for
Punctuate. No matter your race.
Jackie Bouvier Kennedy was als Black. Or “Bi-racial.” When their friends, Sammy Davis Jr. and his wife (white) showed up at the WH for a party, Kennedy told Jackie to let them in through a separate entrance. She refused!
Well, at least Prince Harry and the Queen have no problems with his engagement (not sure if they are engaged yet) to Megan Markle (Suits)
Not sure what gossip rag you got that from but Jack k was good friends with Sammy and the rest of the gang .
What a tragedy. The idea that this woman with a relatively recent sub Saharan ancestor married a white American icon is inconceivable to some people. Perhaps terrifies them about their own ancestry perhaps.
Get over it mixed raced people deliberately and calculatingly passed for white by documenting and reciting only their European ancestry. Why? Because it provided more assured physical safety. Also because it was and continues to be economically, socially and legally advantageous to do so.
My last comment on all this is that I find it odd and humorous that people rise up to say she’s Italian and not black, as if those two things must somehow be mutually exclusive…:)
I was taught by an Afro-Italian nun from Sicily…in fact there are a lot of Afro-Italians….just like there are Afro-French…Afro-Germans….Afro-Americans….let’s see how long it takes them to catch on!
Yes! Say it again for the people who don’t know that Italian is a nationality and NOT A RACE!!! Anyone, of any race, born in Italy is Italian. You can be a Black Italian or a descendant of one/some.
How about the old Indian, Native American, with the tear running down his cheek as someone dumped garbage at his feet…100% Italian. Andre the Giant had two Russian parents, born in France, so he’s French.
Remember who was one of the biggest influences on Elvis Presley: Ike Turner! Also deeply influenced a lot of others. Written down in the movie about Tina Turner, and overall treated as an underwritten historic figure.
Did your research into her ethnicity also include looking up her family’s lineage via census records? Because it is not hard to track down her father, and t lists all of her family members, as well as their races. Her father was Italian, and born in Sicily. All I can tell is that you did a couple google searches, found one headline and a few photos (of which you can produce many more photos that look completely different)… it is certainly possibly that she was mixed race I guess, but your lack of research into any actual recorded information is just a sloppy excuse to write an article so that people will lick on it.
*click! Lol
bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
People lied about their race (black) if they could. It’s called passing.
Nowhere in this article does it say that she was African-American. It says that she was “Black”. But I notice most white folks can differentiate between the two.
Most African-American can’t can differentiate between the two
HOLLYWOOD NEVER WANTS BLACK PEOPLE TO BE RECONIZED. PATHETIC
Very well written story. I enjoyed the read!
Wao! Very interesting but not surprising
Definitely is black. Might be mixed. But definitely black. Not pure italian.
Vivian Liberto Cash was an Italian American. She was not African American, although she was ridiculed by some, including Cash’s father, for her dark complexion.
Nationality has nothing to do with DNA. There is African blood in Italy too.
except, finally! in ”Hidden Figures”… brilliant movie and long overdue.
”
When Cash returned to El Paso for the arraignment in December, he entered a no-contest plea to the charges. The next day, newspapers throughout the country carried photos of Cash walking from the courthouse, Vivian at his side. But there was no hiding the damage. Vivian told friends it was the most embarrassing moment of her life.
Leaders of the National States’ Rights Party, a white supremacist group in Alabama, seized on the photo, which, when reproduced in grainy newsprint, made Vivian look dark-skinned and possessed of facial features some considered African American. Whether outraged by the apparent miscegenation or eager to get back at him for his protest stance in the song “Ira Hayes” (Native Americans were also a target of white supremacists), the group reprinted the photo in its newspaper the Thunderbolt and undertook an aggressive campaign against Cash.
The group urged its readers to boycott Cash’s recordings and referred to Cash’s “mongrelized” children.
Fearing a backlash among fans, especially those in the South, Holiff launched a counteroffensive. He contacted Vivian’s father, Tom Liberto, asking for a copy of Vivian’s marriage certificate —which would state her race as Caucasian — and a history of her bloodlines. Liberto sent him the marriage certificate and a letter in which he detailed Vivian’s Italian, Dutch and English heritage. The material was sent to the Thunderbolt.” http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/12/entertainment/la-et-ms-johnny-cash-calif/4
This whole entire article is a joke.
This headline is from a white supremacist newspaper that was pissed off about his song about Ira Hayes. It was their attempt to make him look bad, but it didn’t work. Vivian Liberto was Italian-American so she had features that look somewhat African. At the time, her family even provided documentation of her heritage to the press to stop this story before it could take off.
Is this 2017? Or 1950? Sure alot of hateful people out there.
A different story FROM the film.
I would love to hear more about her children. Was he their Father?
If true this message on this blog site from Dick Distin, the husband of Vivian Dorraine Liberto Cash Distin confirms she was not black.
https://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=30977
It seems that somehow “SW” was credited with a post I attempted to make earlier. I don’t understand how that happened. Here is my post again.
It appears that Vivian Dorraine Liberto Cash Distin was of Italian, Dutch and English heritage…not black.
“When Cash returned to El Paso for the arraignment in December, he entered a no-contest plea to the charges. The next day, newspapers throughout the country carried photos of Cash walking from the courthouse, Vivian at his side. But there was no hiding the damage. Vivian told friends it was the most embarrassing moment of her life.
Leaders of the National States’ Rights Party, a white supremacist group in Alabama, seized on the photo, which, when reproduced in grainy newsprint, made Vivian look dark-skinned and possessed of facial features some considered African American. Whether outraged by the apparent miscegenation or eager to get back at him for his protest stance in the song “Ira Hayes” (Native Americans were also a target of white supremacists), the group reprinted the photo in its newspaper the Thunderbolt and undertook an aggressive campaign against Cash.
The group urged its readers to boycott Cash’s recordings and referred to Cash’s “mongrelized” children.
Fearing a backlash among fans, especially those in the South, Holiff launched a counteroffensive. He contacted Vivian’s father, Tom Liberto, asking for a copy of Vivian’s marriage certificate —which would state her race as Caucasian — and a history of her bloodlines. Liberto sent him the marriage certificate and a letter in which he detailed Vivian’s Italian, Dutch and English heritage. The material was sent to the Thunderbolt.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/12/entertainment/la-et-ms-johnny-cash-calif/4
There are literally thousands of ‘black’ Dutch, English, Italian, American..etc…those are nationalities, nationalities are what we used to define people before ‘race’ was constructed to separate them.
Tragic consequences of the colour God the Creator ,gave us – we are made by our fellow humans to carry the SINS of all the RACES!
And it’s taking us so long to unite and fight off the scourge and make Them take responsibility for their own stupid acts.
There was a time, not that long ago, that the term ‘Sicilian’ was what you claimed if you were lighter skinned cuz it made the white folks of a certain generation less uneasy sharing a pew with you in church.
We have a few women that at one time were ‘Sicilian’ but thankfully are done with that nonsense and are proud, beautiful women of color.
So where are all those actors/actresses and singers in hollywood now? why are THEY not speaking out about this injustice? they want to speak out about everything else and stir everyone up. So why don’t we see the black actors making their comment?
Why do we care? And why do we (African-Americans) feel the need to ‘expose’ or ‘claim’ people as black who either don’t want to be or maybe, actually aren’t? We can’t prove anything on an old b&w photo.
WOW! In 2017 denial of African American blood still remains at fever pitch.
fyi that “clipping” is from a newspaper called the Thunderbolt, a white supremacist magazine. Not saying that it’s impossible that Vivian Cash wasn’t white, but maybe the sources for this blog post could be vetted a little bit more carefully.
Sources:
http://pinkeye-private-i.tumblr.com/post/110627182015/at-the-trial-of-johnny-cashs-drug-possession-he
http://www.worldcat.org/title/thunderbolt/oclc/1787557
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/12/entertainment/la-et-ms-johnny-cash-calif/4
Very I retesting article. As a fan of Cash, I knew his first wife was black. The author here interprets the drug bust “sin” as being as simple as her BEING black but either leaves out or doesn’t realize the greater story of that era: “passing” – and all that intailed for the person doing it. Hers would be a far more interesting story to do than the simplistic version of his as portrayed in “Walk the Line”. That’s why Hollywood also uses the disclaimer “based on real events”.
John Cash Male 28 Married Colored Head Tennessee 1912 Same Place
Vivian Cash Female 26 Married Colored Wife Illinois 1914 Same Place
John F Cash Male 6 Single Colored Son Illinois 1934 Same Place
Phillip L Cash Male 2 Single Colored Son Illinois 1938 , ,
Ronnie E Cash Male 0 Single Colored Son Illinois 1940
Wow James Mangold is just like Sofia Copolia in the sense getting rid of the black person narrative and in both instanceso the characters are blackwomen. I’m surprised to see that Johnny Cash had a black wife. But it doesn’t surprise that a white directory would hide that. Black people in American Society their narrative has been silented too long. I was wondering if his first wife saw the movie and what her thoughts seeing herself being depicted as a white women. Also in Hollywood these days the Ocars have been whiter than white. Also how they snubbed Moonlight from receiving their award was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in the history of the Oscars. Nowonder it’s hard for Black Actors to find good parts their being erased out by white directors. That’s why I think there should be a movement in Hollywood all the major black actors come together collectively and make there own movies.
Excellent article. Recently I have heard that June Carter had set her sites on Johnny Cash and wasn’t going to stop until she had him. But than again considering all the other lies that we as a society have been feed I am not surprised to find out that the wonderful love story between June and Johnny was actually the cause of a home wrecker (June). And how much would you like to bet that the Carter family was racist as f***.
Vivian was much more beautiful than June. I want to know if he paid Vivian alimony and child support x 4 or was he another biological man/douche bag???
johnny divorced her cause she was a.muggle and he didnt want ito effect em gettin into hogwarts
Hahahahhahhahahahahahahah. I love it when someone does a racism when shouting racist. No, Vivian Liberto Distin was not African American. She was of Mediterranean decent (with some Dutch and English). On her birth certificate her family identified as Caucasian–which is important as Texas didn’t legally allow interracial marriage until 1967. The fact is the story sited here is the work of the Leaders of the National States’ Rights Party, a white supremacist group in Alabama, that seized on the photo, which, when reproduced in grainy newsprint, made Vivian look dark-skinned and possessed of facial features some considered African American. Whether outraged by the apparent miscegenation or eager to get back at him for his protest stance in the song “Ira Hayes” (Native Americans were also a target of white supremacists), the group reprinted the photo in its newspaper the Thunderbolt and undertook an aggressive campaign against Cash.
The group urged its readers to boycott Cash’s recordings and referred to Cash’s “mongrelized” children.
Fearing a backlash among fans, especially those in the South, Holiff launched a counteroffensive. He contacted Vivian’s father, Tom Liberto, asking for a copy of Vivian’s marriage certificate —which would state her race as Caucasian — and a history of her bloodlines. Liberto sent him the marriage certificate and a letter in which he detailed Vivian’s Italian, Dutch and English heritage. The material was sent to the Thunderbolt.
So, yeeeeaaaahhhhh, all of this story can go fuck itself.
Black is not Invisible. Black is Invincible.