The Civil War had been fought and won; the 13th amendment (abolishing slavery), the 14th amendment (Negro citizenship and equal protection of the laws) and 15th amendment (Negro males right to vote) to the Federal constitution had been enacted; and, the Civil Rights law of 1866 had been passed. But the Negro still had not gained equality in many places in the Union. Social justice existed in name only.
After the Civil War, Southern states developed the convict lease system to replace the slave labor that had previously supplied the free manual labor for the cotton economy. Under the convict lease system, state prison authorities entered into contracts to provide labor with owners of private businesses. Plantation owners, mine owners, railroads and mill operators obtained imprisoned convicts, most of whom were black, to perform whatever labor tasks the owners needed to be done in exchange for a nominal lease fee. The lease system provided the states with significant income, and the owners received almost free labor; but, the convicts were treated as badly as slaves used to be treated. (Green p. 158) This system continued to be used in the Southern states well into the twentieth century.
“Chain Gang Boun’,” sung by Josh White and his Carolinians (1940), explains the situation. (https://youtu.be/sEYkzb-l16M)
T’was on a Monday
Monday I was ‘rested
An’ on a Tuesday
Tuesday I was tried
An’ on a Wednesday
Wednesday I was sentenced
An’ on a Thursday, Lordy
On a Thursday chain gang boun’!Hard luck done found me
Great God it fell all around me
I stayed in prison
Can’t you people see?
Chain gang is my home
Jail house is my stoppin’ place
Don’t care about it, Lordy
‘Cause it sho’ is a low down place.Work in de country,
Work ’round de jail house yard
Give me no money
Work me so damn hard
Lord, I got ten years
Ten years to bill my time
To worry chain gang
Chain gang off my mind!
Another example of mistreatment of people with black skin: beginning with Mississippi in 1890, every Southern state, except Kentucky and Tennessee, instituted a system of a poll tax and/or literacy tests in order to deprive these people of their right to vote. Negroes, the great majority of whom still lived in the South and worked on land they did not own (sharecropping), had many battles left to fight.
The “Jim Crow” system, the implementation of segregationist social and political regimes, was also developed in the South after the Civil War. “In the wake of the abolition of slavery, a new series of humiliating subjugations, legalized discriminatory actions, and cultural practices took hold. ‘Jim Crow’–once a minstrel stereotype for the backwards, uneducated, slap-happy black–became the generic term for the social, employment and legal suppression rampant in the South and increasingly present in the North.” (Friedman (ed.), The Routledge History of Social Protest in Popular Music, Turner essay, p. 44.)
In 1896, the United States Supreme Court put a stamp of approval on these segregationist practices when it adopted the “separate but equal” doctrine in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed. 256 (1896). The “separate but equal” principle allowed states to pass laws legally separating the races in all types of public accommodations, from toilets and drinking fountains to lunch counters and busses. The Jim Crow segregation system was not eradicated until after the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
“Jim Crow Blues,” written and sung by Charles Edward ”Cow Cow” Davenport (1927), gives a black skinned man’s point of view on the Jim Crow culture. (https://youtu.be/ODvWngjDHFo)
I’m tired of being Jim Crowed. Gon’ leave this Jim Crow town.
Doggone my black soul, I’m sweet Chicago bound.Yes, I’m leavin’ here, from this ol’ Jim Crow town.
I’m going up north where they say money grows on trees.
I don’t give a doggone if my black soul freeze.
I’m going where I won’t need no BVDs.I got a hat, got a old overcoat. Don’t need nothin’ but you.
These old easy-walkers gon’ give my …
But when my girlie hear ’bout this, Lord, that’ll be sad news.I’m going up north. Baby, I can’t carry you.
Ain’t nothing in that cold country a green girl can do.
I’m gon’ get me a northern girl. Baby, I am through with you.Lord, but I might get up there where the … I don’t find no …
Go and tell that boss-man of mine
Lord, I’m ready to come back to my Jim Crow town.
Another song entitled “Jim Crow Blues,” written and sung by Huddie Ledbetter (https://youtu.be/Fq0lXTTS_1E) (aka Lead Belly; two words was his preferred spelling, Rutledge History, Turner Essay, p.54, note 2.) gives another look at the situation. (Also sung by Odetta, https://youtu.be/pejC6hFJcVM)
Bunk Johnson told me too,
This old Jim Crowism dead bad luck for me and you
I been traveling, I been traveling from shore to shore
Everywhere I have been I find some old Jim CrowOne thing, people, I want everybody to know
You’re gonna find some Jim Crow, every place you goDown in Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia’s a mighty good place to go
And get together, break up this old Jim CrowI told everybody over the radio
Make up their mind and get together, break up this old Jim CrowI want to tell you people something that you don’t know
It’s a lotta Jim Crow in a moving picture showI’m gonna sing this verse, I ain’t gonna sing no more
Please get together, break up this old Jim Crow
Woody Guthrie wrote (1942) and The Almanac Singers, among others, sung a song entitled “Jim Crow” which presents a white man’s point of view. (Version by The Union Boys (https://youtu.be/QHbV5hyMVfA)
Lincoln set the Negro free
Why is he still in Slavery?
Why is he still in Slavery?
Jim Crow!!This is a land we call our own
Why does the Negro ride alone?
Why does the Negro ride alone?
Jim Crow!When it’s time to go to the polls
Why does the Negro stay at home?
Why does the Negro stay at home?
Jim Crow!When it’s time to go to the war
Why does the Negro march alone?
Why does the Negro march alone?
Jim Crow!Freedom for all is what is said
Free to suffer till he’s dead!
Free to suffer till he’s dead!
Jim Crow!This is a Land of Democracy
Why isn’t everybody free?
Why isn’t everybody free?
Jim Crow!If we believe in Liberty
Put an end to slavery!
Put an end to slavery!
Jim Crow!
Racial attitudes at the turn of the century were reflected by the furor that arose when President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner in 1901. There was a large negative public reaction to the fact that a black man ate a meal at the White House. A popular verse at the time was “The Statute of Liberty hung her head; Columbia dropped in a swoon; The American Eagle dropped and died; When Teddy dined with a coon.” (Jennings and Brewster, p. 33.) Gus Cannon wrote “Can You Blame the Colored Man” (1927) about that experience. (https://youtu.be/pyx0aBWGyAU)
Now, Booker T, he left Tuskegee, to the White House he went one day.
He was goin’ to call on the President in a quiet and a sociable way
He was in his car, he was feelin’ fine.Now, when Booker knocked on the President’s door, old Booker begin to grin.
Now, he almost changed his color, when old Roosevelt says “A-come in,
We’ll have some dinner in a little while.”Now, could you blame the colored man for makin’ them goo-goo eyes?
And when he sat down at the President’s table he began to smile
Eatin’ lamb, ham chicken roast, chicken, turkey, quail on toast
Now, could you blame the colored man for makin’ them goo-goo eyes?Now, Booker was so delighted at the social that was given to him,
Well, he hired him a horse and carriage and he taken the whole town in.
He’s drunk on wine, was feelin’ fine.Now, could you blame the colored man for makin’ them goo-goo eyes?
And when he sat down at the President’s table he began to smile
Eatin’ lamb, ham chicken roast, chicken, turkey, quail on toast
Now, could you blame the colored man for makin’ them goo-goo eyes?
Black soldiers who were drafted for WWI also faced discrimination. The Armed services were segregated until after WW II. The Wilson administration, which was fighting to “Make the World Safe for Democracy” in Europe, refused to integrate our own armed services. Only 50,000 of the 370,000 black soldiers inducted were sent to Europe and hardly any of them saw combat duty. Most were relegated to supply and labor details. (Lawson, Jim Crow’s Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, pp. 117-119.)
In August, 1917 in Houston, Texas, black soldiers, who objected to local Jim Crow practices, were harassed by whites, sparking a riot. White police officers used armed force. Seventeen people died, including 11 civilians, four police officers, and two black soldiers. Despite the fact that the reporting military officer on the scene blamed the riot on the racism of the local whites and the unjust treatment of the Houston Police Department, 13 black soldiers were executed for “mutiny.” (Id.)
More evidence of the circumstances in which Negros lived in the South were the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma race riots, the “…deadliest occurrence of racial violence in United States history.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/us/20tulsa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.) In May 1921, a white female elevator operator accused a black man of grabbing her arm while at work. The woman complained to the police about a sexual assault, and they arrested the black man. The word of the alleged assault quickly spread throughout the white community, with greater exaggeration in each telling. Mobs of whites looking for a lynching began to gather around the city jail, where the suspect was held. Blacks assembled at the jail to prevent any violence. There was a confrontation at the jail between blacks and whites. Shots were fired and the blacks retreated to their own section of the city, The Greenwood District, a/k/a “Little Africa.” The whites then set fire to the black neighborhood, an area encompassed by over 600 businesses. Thirty-five city blocks of the black district, including 1,256 homes, were burned to the ground. Over 800 people were treated for injuries. An estimated 300 people died. 6,000 blacks were arrested and held in custody for as long as eight days. (Id.)
In 1996, the State of Oklahoma commissioned a study of the events of the Tulsa riots. In a report that was issued in 2001, the study commission concluded that descendants of residents and business owners in the Greenwood District were entitled to reparations by the State of Oklahoma. (http://tulsahistory.org/learn/online-exhibits/the-tulsa-race-riot/)
(http://www.blackwallstreet.freeservers.com/The%20Story.htm)
The Tulsa race riot is the subject of a song written and performed by Graham Nash, “Dirty Little Secret.” (http://youtu.be/MpW-u3MQj-I)
Greenwood, Oklahoma, June of ‘21
Someone set the night on fire
Lost a lot of people as the day begun
Who lit the funeral pyre?On an elevator in the heart of town
Someone make somebody scream
Black and white, going up and down
Who’s gonna lose a dream?Dirty little secret
Headlines printed in the daily news
Awake the sleeping rage inside
Disarm the people, keep em all confused
Kill before they turn the tideDirty little secrets going round
Whispering from ear to ear
Burning down the very heart of town
Nobody shed a tearDirty little secret, dirty little secret
Look up to the sky, your tears fall from the clouds
But Greenwood don’t you cry, just shout it right out loudIt’s such a dirty little secret
Getting so much darker every day
It’s hard to rise above it all
Can’t we get along? I heard somebody say
Who’s gonna make the call?‘Cause all the walking wounded pay the price
For living in the promised land
Take care of your neighbor would be my advice
Cause nothing ever goes as plannedIts such a dirty little secret
Dirty little secret, dirty little secret
Dirty little secretDirty little secret, dirty little secret
Dirty little secret, dirty little secret
In the 1941, Josh White, a black guitarist, whose career dated back to the 1920s, who worked with many social and protest singers including Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and the Almanac Singers, and who has been called “One of the first musicians to make a name for himself singing political blues” (http://10protestsongs.wikispaces.com/American+Protest+Songs?showComments=1) recorded an album entitled “Southern Exposure: An Album of Jim Crow Blues.” The songs on that album were critical of the “Jim Crow” segregation system. Supposedly, White played songs from that album for President and Mrs. Roosevelt. White had a close relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt and consulted with them on race issues. In December 1940, he and The Golden Gate Quartet performed a concert sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt at the Library of Congress. A sampling of songs from the “Southern Exposure” album follows:
“Uncle Sam Says,” (http://youtu.be/vDOksxkIfLg?list=PLyn_thCb1Z-KdA57VKIjjKepX_sAvOuEi0) recorded 1941 by Josh White; written by Josh White and Waring Cuney. White’s song is based on his brother’s experience in the segregated section of Fort Dix army camp in New Jersey.
Well, airplanes flyin’ ‘cross the land and sea
Everybody flyin’ but a Negro like me
Uncle Sam says, “Your place is on the ground.
When I fly my airplanes, don’t want no Negro ’round.”The same thing for the Navy when ships goes to sea
All they got is a mess boy’s job for me
Uncle Sam says, “Keep on your apron son.
You know I ain’t gonna let you shoot my big Navy gun.”Got my long government letters, my time to go
When I got to the Army, found the same old Jim Crow
Uncle Sam says, “Two camps for black and white.”
But when trouble starts, we’ll all be in that same big fight.If you ask me I think Democracy is fine
I mean Democracy without the color line
Uncle Sam says, “We’ll live the American Way.”
Let’s get together and kill Jim Crow today.
White’s “Hard Time Blues” (1941) relates the plight of the black sharecropper. (http://youtu.be/-Ehn5TKtvLQ)
Well, I went down home ’bout a year ago.
Things so bad, Lord, my heart was sore.
Folks had nothin’; was a sin an’ a shame.
Ev’rybody said hard times was to blame.CHORUS: Great God Almighty, folks feelin’ bad,
Lost ev’rything they ever had.
Great God Almighty, folks feelin’ bad,
Lost ev’rything they ever had.They had skinny-looking children, bellies pokin’ out,
That old pellagra without a doubt.
Old folk hangin’ ’round the cabin door,
Ain’t seen times this hard before.Now the sun was a-shinin’ fourteen days and no rain.
Hoein’ and plantin’ was all in vain.
They had hard, hard times, Lord, all around,
Meal barrel’s empty, crops burned to the ground.Then I went to the boss at the commissary store.
Folks all sobbin’, “Please don’t close your door.
We want more food and a little more time to pay.”
Boss man laughed and walked away.Now your landlord comes around when your rent is due,
And if you ain’t got his money, take your home from you.
He’ll take your mule and horse, even take your cow.
Says, “Get off of my land. You’re no good nohow.”
“Defense Factory Blues,” performed by Josh White, written by White and Cuney (1941) looks at segregation from a different point of view: that of a black man trying to find work in a defense plant. (http://youtu.be/DHiW70TrhTU?list=PLyn_thCb1Z-KdA57VKIjjKepX_sAvOuEi)
Went to the defense factory, trying to find some work to do
Had the nerve to tell me, “black boy, nothing here for you.”
My father died, died fighting ‘cross the seaMama said his dying never helped her or me.
I’ll tell you brother, well it sure don’t make no sense
When a Negro can’t work in the national defense.I’ll tell you one thing, that boss man ain’t my friend
If he was, he’d give me some Democracy to defend
In the land of the free, called home, home of the brave
All I want is liberty, that’s what I crave.
“Trouble,” written and performed by Josh White (https://youtu.be/DUdmP1T97iA) tells the story of a black man’s experience with local law enforcement authorities.
Well, I always been in trouble, ‘cause I’m a black-skinned man.
Said I hit a white man, [and they] locked me in the can
They took me to the stockade, wouldn’t give me no trial
The judge said, “You black boy, forty years on the hard rock pile.”Trouble, trouble, sure won’t make me stay,
Trouble, trouble, jail break due someday.Wearin’ cold iron shackles from my head down to my knee
And that mean old keeper, he’s all time kickin’ me.
I went up to the walker and the head boss too
Said, “You big white folks, please see what you can do.”
Sheriff winked at the policeman, said, “I won’t forget you nohow,
You better come back and see me again, boy, about 40 years from now.”
Went back to the walker, he looked at me and said,
“Don’t you worry about 40, ‘cause in five years you’ll be dead.”Trouble, trouble, makes me weep and moan
Trouble, trouble, every since I was born.
Trouble, trouble, sure won’t make me stay,
Trouble, trouble, jail break due someday.
In 1933 Lead Belly was found by John and Alan Lomax, white American musicologists, while he was incarcerated in a Louisiana prison for stabbing a white man. The Lomaxes were visiting southern prisons in their efforts to uncover authentic black southern music. The Lomaxes were impressed with the scope of Lead Belly’s musical repertoire: “a living library of folk and blues songs” (Eyerman and Jamison, p. 67) and his style of singing and playing. Richard Wright, author of Native Son, stated “The entire folk culture of the American Negro has found its embodiment in [Lead Belly]…it seems he knows every song his race has ever sung.” (Quoted in Goldsmith, p. 97.)
Lead Belly was pardoned in 1934 and the Lomaxes took him to New York City where worked for them (some say manipulated him), and they promoted his musical efforts by introducing him to the people in the recording industry and arranging appearances on the radio and in concerts. Some of Lead Belly’s most famous songs are “Good Night Irene,” which he used to open and close most of his performances, “The Rock Island Line,” and “Midnight Special.” The Weavers (Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman) made “Good Night Irene” a number one pop hit in 1950, selling over 4 million records between 1950 and 1952 (Routledge History, Bierman essay, p. 40.)
Lead Belly wrote “Bourgeois Blues” in the early 1940s to tell about a segregationist experience he had in Washington D.C. Lead Belly and some Caucasian friends went to a D.C. hotel to have dinner. The hotel refused to serve the group because it was mixed-race. (http://youtu.be/Pjnn6GAJqpw)
Lord, in a bourgeois town
It’s a bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all aroundHome of the brave, land of the free
I don’t wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all aroundWell, me and my wife we were standing upstairs
We heard the white man say “I don’t want no niggerWell, me and my wife we were standing upstairs
We heard the white man say “I don’t want no niggers up there”
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all aroundWell, them white folks in Washington they know how
Chuck a colored man a nickle just to see him bow
Lord, it’s a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all aroundI tell all the colored folks to listen to me
Don’t try to find you no home in Washington, DC
`Cause it’s a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all aroun’
A similar incident, reflecting prejudicial racial attitudes in Washington D.C. in the Depression Era, occurred in 1939 when the Daughters of the American Revolution denied Marian Anderson, a well-respected black opera singer, the use of the DAR’s Constitution Hall. Reflecting her distaste at this discrimination, Eleanor Roosevelt arranged to have Ms. Anderson sing at the Lincoln Memorial, where she drew an integrated crowd of approximately 75,000 people. (Young, WW II, p. 195.)
In 1951, Big Bill Broonzy wrote “Black, Brown and White,” a description of the problems of the black community under Jim Crow. “In it, he describes pervasive and familiar discrimination in living and working conditions…the refrain points to prejudice based on hue of blackness…white is right, brown stays around, black gets back….” (Routledge History, Turner essay, p. 48.) (http://youtu.be/k0c1c0ZsTLA)
This little song that I’m singin’ about
People you know it’s true
If you’re black and gotta work for a living now
This is what they will say to youThey said if you was white should be all right
If you was brown stick around
But as you black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get backI was in a place one night
They was all having fun
They was all buyin’ beer and wine
But they would not sell me noneThey said if you was white should be all right
If you was brown stick around
But as you’re black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get backI went to an employment office
Got a number ‘n’ I got in line
They called everybody’s number
But they never did call mineThey said if you was white should be all right
If you was brown stick around
But as you black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get backMe and a man was workin’ side by side
This is what it meant
They was paying him a dollar an hour
And they was paying me fifty centThey said if you was white should be all right
If you was brown stick around
But as you black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get backI helped built this country
And I fought for it too
Now I guess that you can see
What a black man have to doThey said if you was white should be all right
If you was brown stick around
But as you’s black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get backI hope to win sweet victory
With my little plough and hoe
Now I want you to tell me brother
What you gonna do about the old Jim Crow?Now if you was white should be all right
If you was brown stick around
But if you black, oh brother
Get back, get back, get back