land of the free home of the brave johnny casg

(Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) “Johnny and I received death threats, and an already shameful situation was made infinitely worse,” recalled Vivian in her 2008 memoir.Ĭountry singer/songwriter Johnny Cash holds a guitar as his wife Vivian Liberto and daughters, Rosanne and Kathy, look on, 1957. READ MORE: I Went With Johnny Cash to Folsom PrisonĬash was harassed and boycotted by some Southern fans. The money generated by Cash’s hit records, it claimed, went “to scum like Johnny Cash to keep them supplied with dope and negro women.” The National States Rights Party, an Alabama white supremacist group, republished the photo in its newspaper, The Thunderbolt, with an article that dripped with racist rhetoric. He got off with a deferred sentence and a $1,000 fine-and had no idea that, as he walked down the courthouse steps in El Paso, Texas, with his wife Vivian, he was about to spark a firestorm.Īn Associated Press photo of Cash and Vivian ran in newspapers the next day-and to some readers, it appeared that Vivian, an Italian-American woman who was rarely photographed, was Black. Customs agents found hundreds of pep pills & tranquilizers in his luggage as he returned from Mexico in October 1965. Johnny Cash poses for a mug shot after U.S.

Land of the free home of the brave johnny casg