![]() ![]() “Cash’s manager had to respond,” says Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, author of Johnny Cash: The Biography. Though the National States Rights Party was not the Ku Klux Klan, it had close ties to the organization and in publicity about the campaign against Cash, many outlets-and Cash himself-identified it as the KKK. “In the code of the south,” the article continued, “there is no greater crime than miscegenation.” At the time, interracial marriages were banned throughout the South. In an October 1966 article, Variety described Cash as “the innocent victim of a targeted hate campaign in the south.” The “racial error,” wrote the anonymous author, had sparked boycotts and threats. “Johnny and I received death threats, and an already shameful situation was made infinitely worse,” recalled Vivian in her 2008 memoir. Customs agents found hundreds of pep pills & tranquilizers in his luggage as he returned from Mexico in October 1965.Ĭash was harassed and boycotted by some Southern fans. Johnny Cash poses for a mug shot after U.S. 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. Cash spent a night in jail and, two months later, plead guilty to the possession of illegal drugs. Customs agents found 475 Equanil tablets and 688 Dexedrine capsules stashed in his guitar case and threw him in jail. His marriage with Vivian was on the rocks when, on Octohe was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border after purchasing a large quantity of amphetamines and sedatives from a Mexican dealer. As he climbed to country stardom, Cash developed an addiction to prescription drugs-and a passion for another married woman, June Carter. ![]()
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