The Irish Examiner View: Little Richard - a force of nature

In December 1932, the American state of Georgia may have been different to what it is today even if the belated charging of a father and son for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man shot while jogging in February, suggests old hatreds endure.

Ireland is certainly different. Fianna Fáil, led by Éamon de Valera, won its first Dáil majority. W. B. Yeats published his Collected Poems. The Anti–Jazz Campaign, a coalition alarmed by foreign music and dancing was about to flex its muscles.

In December 1932, Little Richard, described as the architect of rock ’’n roll was born in Macon, Georgia. He has died, aged 87. Born Richard Penniman he had been in poor health for several years.

There are many ways to judge how our world has changed. Nevertheless it is not too challenging to imagine how our 1930s’’ Anti–Jazz Campaign might have regarded Little Richard when his magnificent, exotic, bone-shaking was in its glorious pomp.