Francis doesn't buy it. So I believe my songs were almost treated like they didn't exist. Francis heard that his press kit was tossed in the trash unopened at some small stations, and says a booking agent told him some club owners refused to hire him because he was black. Looking back on his three years on the road, Francis says there was a polarization of racial feelings nationwide. The Rodney King riots and the O.J. Simpson trial both fell during that time.
Discrimination can be overt or it can be a colorless, odorless gas.
And maybe sometimes it's not there at all. Francis leaves no doubt about where he comes down on the issue. This isn't like the fight for civil rights, where blacks were getting beat up, denied the right to vote and kept out of restaurants. Nobody is going to die today or tomorrow if they don't hear a black country singer. But it does deny people an opportunity, and that is not supposed to happen in this country.