My mom defended Elvis Presley’s wiggling hips.

It all seems so wierd. Imagine a world where people were shocked and angry about Elvis Presley and his undulating hip-action! Hard to believe the outrage he caused. Mom’s friends were appalled by Elvis’ gyrations. Mom defended his right to wiggle, gyrate and enjoy strutting his stuff.

She loved dancing, and I can only imagine, based on my love of dancing, how she also enjoyed the exhilarating feeling of freedom dancing brought her. She certainly thought there was nothing wrong with Elvis Presley, he was a handsome young man enjoying himself on stage, rocking and rolling to the music.
“Sue, I couldn’t believe it, people thought he was some evil, horrible man, “Elvis the pelvis” was his nickname. Ed Sullivan wouldn’t allow the t.v. cameras to focus on his entire body when he performed, he was cut-off at the waist for viewers at home, as if his hips would destroy an entire country.” She shook her head as she told me this story when I was a teenager and people were complaining about the music my generation was listening to, dancing to, yes, getting high to, but that’s a different story; it was the generation gap rearing its judgmental head as always via the media. “Sue, in 1956 Elvis was shocking this country as if he was a cold blooded killer or something. Here I am again, now defending my kids’ choice in music to my friends who think it’s all garbage.”

Here is the clip from Sullivan’s show. Elvis made his debut on The Milton Berle show earlier that year, undulating for all the world to see, but Sullivan was less than thrilled to have him on his Sunday show, however, business was business! I imagine the ratings were through the roof that night, assuming they had ratings back in those early days of television. Here is Elvis, the camera not revealing to the 60 million viewers at home what he looked like dancing full out to Hound Dog, but the studio audience certainly had an eyeful. Note how long his suit jacket is, those hips somewhere hidden beneath it (if you find other YouTube clips of him singing on Milton Berle’s show, you see only his feet moving and knees because the jacket is so big it hides much of his body).

In today’s darkness of censorship and librarians threatened and books being banned and even burned in some places, ( Google, “they are burning books in Tennessee, 2022”); it is no surprise that the forerunner to this was a huge swathe of Americans outraged by Presley’s overt sexuality as he let the music move him.

Outrage today is way beyond those “righteous” people who wrote editorials against Elvis Presley, those who thought they would turn to salt and crumble if they gazed upon him in a full body camera shot on stage; and certainly the outrage of those who were not about to let their children listen to that music or dance to that evil rock and roll.

In juke joints and clubs Black people were dancing to this music long before Elvis brought it to the white world. He grew up in this music, in the projects and in the socioeconomically poor neighborhoods of Memphis where he lived, the rhythm and blues music deeply embedded in his life.

My mom defended Elvis because she saw nothing to condemn.

My mom would be on the front lines today standing shoulder to shoulder with librarians and teachers besieged and targeted by the same bigotry and virulent hatred she defended me and my brother Richard from as she marched with my dad, in the 1980s New York City Lesbian and Gay Pride Parades.

Let’s crank up the music and dance!
My mom, my shero.