An Upstate New York school banned “Jingle Bells” due to the popular holiday song’s “questionable past.” Council Rock Elementary in Brighton, N.Y., told the Rochester Beacon that the Christmas carol and several others have been replaced with different tunes that don’t have the “potential to be controversial or offensive.” One factor in the decision was research published in 2017 by Boston University professor Kyna Hamill. Hamill found “Jingle Bells; or, The One Horse Open Sleigh,” was first performed in public at an 1857 minstrel show in Boston with white performers in blackface.
REFERENCE: https://www.syracuse.com/state/2021/12/upstate-ny-school-bans-jingle-bells-due-to-holiday-songs-questionable-past.html
