Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet virtuoso, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing, or wordless vocalizing.

Louis Armstrong in Southern Victory
Satchmo (full name Sennacherib) was a Negro musician originally from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Satchmo took advantage of Radical Liberal Huey Long's governorship of Louisiana to protect himself from the overt and violent racism of the Freedom Party. Following Long's assassination in 1937, Satchmo and his band (in which he sang and played the trumpet) began touring the entire Confederate States. Their music was fast-paced and lively, and was wildly popular among both black and white audiences. Scipio saw Satchmo perform in the Terry of Augusta, Georgia.

During the Second Great War, Satchmo's band was booked to entertain the Confederate army. During Operation Blackbeard, Satchmo awed a military audience in Ohio that included Tom Colleton. After the show, he and his band hijacked an army command car and defected to the United States.

Among White Confederates, Satchmo's defection to the enemy had the effect of snapping the last cultural bond still linking Blacks and Whites, and reinforcing among Whites the feeling of "betrayal by the Blacks" which was a major aspect of Freedom Party propaganda. The immediate reaction of Tom Colleton - a relative moderate by Confederate standards, and not enthusiastic about the Freedom Party - was "these Blacks really deserve to be killed".

For his part, the defective Satchmo was met in Philadelphia by Congresswoman Flora Blackford. With Blackford's patronage, Satchmo toured the US, spreading news of the Population Reduction to Americans--as well as introducing them to his music. The last was quite difficult, since few people in the US had much interest in or appreciation for Satchmo's kind of music.