Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” continues to stir up controversy. This time, the country star’s TikTok teaser for the song is drawing outrage.
TikToker Danny Collins, a former minor league pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, took a closer look on Saturday at the newspaper article featured in the background of Aldean’s promotional clip for the song, which has sparked accusations it’s “pro-lynching” and “racist.”
According to Collins, the text in the “Small Town” TikTok, which was posted May 19 (the same day the song came out), appears to have originated from a now-defunct newspaper from Petal, Mississippi, called the Petal Paper.
Collins claims to have found an archived copy of the 1956 article online. He stated that the text was a letter to the publication’s publisher, P.D. East, from an NAACP public relations consultant.
The consultant commended East for using his platform to ridicule white supremacists and criticize the Jim Crow-era policy of segregation in schools.
“Never have I seen anything that startled me as much as the March 15 issue of the Petal Paper with its incredible ridiculing of the White Citizens Council crowd. I’m referring specifically to the full-page ad I assume you wrote headed, ‘You Too, Can Be Superior,’” Collins read from the letter.
“I hope I am not congratulating a dead man. This must have taken courage and I hope you are still with us.”
Collins then reads bits from East’s response letter, in which the publisher claimed he was called an “N-lover” and “bothered and harassed” by citizens of the town.
East also reported that the paper lost more than 200 subscribers.
“Why would this happen to Mr. P.D. East? Because he tried that in a small town,” Collins concluded his TikTok, tying it back to Aldean’s chart-topping song.
“He challenged the Southern, racist establishment. But let Jason Aldean tell it … and this song has ‘nothing’ to do with race,’” the TikToker said, referring to Aldean’s denial that the song is racist.
Consequence argues that the imagery in the clip “glorifies an attack on anti-segregationist reporter in a small town in Jim Crow-era Mississippi.”
The Post has contacted reps for Aldean, 46, for comment.
“Small Town” has been criticized by fans and fellow musicians as CMT pulled the music video, which features footage from various protests including Black Lives Matter and Aldean performing in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee.
The courthouse was the backdrop for the 1946 Columbia Race Riot, which nearly resulted in the lynching of the first Black Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.
The city also saw the lynching of Henry Choate, 18, in 1927.
Aldean has now defended himself twice against racist accusations, most recently during his Friday concert in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“It’s been a long week, and I’ve seen a lot of stuff suggesting I’m this, suggesting I’m that,” he told adoring fans. “I feel like everybody’s entitled to their opinions. You can think something all you want to it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Aldean continued: “What I am is a proud American. I’m proud to be from here. I love our country. I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this bulls–t started happening to us. I love my country, I love my family, and I will do anything to protect that, I can tell you that right now.”
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