A look at resistance, rebellion, and protest in the ballad and legend of John Henry (Part 2)

John Henry: The Rebel Versions

by Jim Hauser Contact: jphauser2000 (at) yahoo.com

John Henry said to the captain

A man ain't nothin' but a man

Before I let that steam drill beat me down

I'll die with a hammer in my hand

A Man Ain't Nothin' but a Man: John Henry and Racial Equality

The phrase “a man ain’t nothin’ but a man” probably appears in over 50 percent of the documented versions of “John Henry", and I consider it to be the ballad’s key line, the linchpin in a seemingly simple but quite complex song (see Note 1). This single phrase spoken by John Henry to his overseer has layer upon layer of meaning. On the surface, he is saying, I am only human, just flesh and blood, not a tireless, unfeeling machine like my opponent, the steam drill. This is the meaning which comes from considering the phrase within the context of the verse in which it appears and of the story of John Henry's race against the drill. But by considering the phrase in relation to the world of racial oppression which John Henry and other black men lived in and had to endure every day, the deeper meanings of the the phrase come into focus. On a deeper level, John Henry is laying claim to his being human. He is saying, I am a human being; my being black does not make me inferior or subhuman. Furthermore, I contend that, on an even deeper level, he is asserting racial equality with his captain. He is saying, I am a man. And a man--whether he be black or white--is only a man. One color is not superior to the other. You are not superior to me. " A discussion of the evidence I have found to support the existence of this third meaning is below.

Two African American authors have used the phrase “a man ain’t nothin’ but a man” in connection with John Henry to assert racial equality. One of them is Gus (Augustus) White, a pioneering orthopedic surgeon. In his book Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Health Care, he makes a point about not just racial equality but the equality of all people, pointing out that regardless of differences in race, status, or culture, we share a common humanity. He does this by describing how surgery reveals that we are all the same. White notes that upon making an incision, the surgeon sees no difference in what lies beneath the skin. He ends his point by invoking the name of John Henry and the phrase “a man ain’t nothin’ but a man" (pages 175-176). Another black writer, John Oliver Killens (twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), has also used this phrase in connection with John Henry in order to assert racial equality. In Killens’s novel A Man Ain’t Nothin’ But a Man: The Adventures of John Henry (page 154), John Henry tells a group of fellow workers that “a man ain’t nothin but a man, don’t care what color he be." And elsewhere in the novel (page 24), John Henry sings the “a man ain’t nothin’ but a man” phrase in a verse which expresses the same sentiment.

A man ain’t nothin’ but a man--

A man ain’t nothin’ but a man.

He can be white or black,

He can be yellow or tan,

It makes no difference when it's man to man.

It's been like that since the world began.

A man ain’t nothin’ but a man.

We can also see the phrase “a man ain’t nothin’ but a man” as an assertion of racial equality by looking at the black folk song "De Black Jack and de Tall White Pine." (It was collected by an African American professor and folklorist named Willis Laurence James, and appears in his book Stars in de Elements: A Study of Negro Folk Music.) In this song, a conversation takes place between two trees, a black jack and a white pine. The white pine thinks it is superior to the black jack, but the black jack proclaims its equality by telling the pine, "Trees ain't nothin' but trees." The key verse from the song is below exactly as it appears on page 142 of James's book, including the parenthetical definition of the term "biggity."

De black jack said to de tall white pine,

Just 'cause you high in de breeze,

You need'nt talk so biggity (bigoted),

Trees ain't nothin' but trees.

Considering that the black tree calls the white tree bigoted, the phrase "trees ain't nothin' but trees" is clearly an assertion of racial equality. It follows that the John Henry ballad's “a man ain’t nothin’ but a man” phrase--which is simply a variation to "trees ain't nothin' but trees"--is also an assertion of racial equality. Certainly, many African Americans who performed or heard "John Henry" interpreted the phrase in this way.

Further evidence that the phrase "a man ain't nothin' but a man" was used to assert black equality can be found in bluesman John Lee Hooker's recording "Birmingham Blues," which uses a similar phrase--"a man is just a man"--to declare equality. The recording was released in 1963 on the black-owned Vee Jay label, and is one of the most strongly worded, openly blunt songs of racial protest that exists in recorded blues. With fierce indignation, Hooker asserts that "God made everybody equal", and denounces the city of Birmingham, Alabama, a city which Martin Luther King, Jr. described as "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." The third and fourth verses of "Birmingham Blues" are below.

I feel so bad, I read about Birmingham

I feel so bad, I read, read about Birmingham

Ah, do I know one thing: A man is just a man

God made this land

And this land

Is no one, is no one's land

And God made everybody equal. Equal, equal.

I don't know why Birmingham

Treat, treat the people the way they do

Hooker recorded "Birmingham Blues" in response to events which occurred in Birmingham during the series of civil rights protest demonstrations which took place in the spring of 1963. Known as the Birmingham Campaign, the protests included marches, lunch counter sit-ins, kneel-ins at white churches, and boycotts of local merchants. The protests and also the confrontations between the white authorities and black protestors were widely publicized by the news media, and images of police dogs and powerful high-pressure fire hoses being used to subdue protestors garnered them world wide sympathy.

"Birmingham Blues" is included on Vee Jay's John Lee Hooker on Campus album. Below is a link to the song on Youtube.

Birmingham Blues by John Lee Hooker

Another example of a black man asserting racial equality through use of the phrase "a man ain't nothin' but a man" may be found in The Oral History of James Nunn, a Unique North Carolinian, a book in which Nunn tells his life story. In it, he describes a time when he attended a courthouse meeting of the local county commission (see pages 133-134). He and one other man were the only black attendees. Below is an excerpt from the book in which Nunn explains that he would not allow himself to be intimidated by his status as a minority, and tells himself "a man ain't nothin' but a man" to affirm his equality with the white people at the meeting.

So I went in the courthouse there and sat down. There I sat. That house full of white men and everything. What you reckon I done? I went in there and sat down and said to myself, "A man ain't nothin' but a man." And I crossed my leg and sat down just like the rest of those white folks did. And there won't but two colored ones in, and supposed to been colored, in the house.

An additional example may be found in an August 9, 1964 New York Times article entitled " 'Happy' Negroes Dispute Sheriff: Mississippians Write of Life in Letters to The Times." In this example, the phrase "a man ain't but a man" is used in lieu of "a man ain't nothin' but a man." The article tells of 20 black residents of Bolivar County, Mississippi who sent letters to the New York Times in which they disputed a published remark made by Charles W. Capps, Jr., a Mississippi sheriff, that "95 percent of our blacks are happy." The article included excerpts from those letters, and one of the letters contained the following statement:

What we want is a decent living. If the white man gets $2.50 an hour, well the Negro should get the same thing, cause a man ain't but a man and a woman ain't but a woman. 'Cause God made us all out of one blood. It don't make no difference--we're all one kind. We're all human.

A link to the article is below.

'Happy' Negroes Dispute Sheriff: Mississippians Write of Life in Letters to The Times.

Based on the evidence presented above, it is highly probable that there was a period of time in America's past during which when a black man sang of John Henry telling his captain that "a man ain't nothin' but a man," the musician was using the words of John Henry to make a statement. He was stating that race makes no difference--John Henry is equal to his captain, and black men are equal to white men. And it's also likely that this statement was heard loudly and clearly by the black members of the musician's audience. The length of time that John Henry's words served this function is hard to say. But the number of years is probably equal to at least as many years as black people had to endure life under the Jim Crow system.

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These songs didn't come out of thin air... If you sang "John Henry" as many times as me-- John Henry was a steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand / John Henry said "a man ain't nothin' but a man / Before I let that steam drill drive me down / I'll die with that hammer in my hand." If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you'd have written "How many roads must a man walk down?" too.

--Bob Dylan (from his MusiCares Person of the Year speech, February 2015)

The theme of manhood in the legend of John Henry

What led to the creation of the rebel and complaint versions? In the "Interpreting John Henry" section of Part 1 of this website, I suggested the possibility that the rebel versions were created by convict lease workers and other forced laborers in reaction to the cruel treatment that they received. Another possibility is that they may have developed out of John Henry being such an important symbol of manhood to African Americans during a time when black men were denied their manhood. The theme of manhood courses throughout the legend. I'm not sure if a version of the ballad exists in which John Henry is not referred to as a steel driving man, natural man, Tennessee man, West Virginia man, or some other kind of man. In some versions, John Henry himself declares that he is a man, and, in others, the captain--a white man--calls him a man. Two black writers, Sterling Brown and Sterling Stuckey, have pointed to John Henry as a great symbol of black manhood. Stuckey, in an essay titled "Through the Prism of Folklore," wrote that John Henry is the black man’s “greatest symbol of manhood.” And, in a poem entitled “Strange Legacies,” Brown paid tribute to John Henry and his manhood by describing his courage, strength, persistence, and pride, and by praising him for showing African Americans how to “go down like a man.”

John Henry, with your hammer;

John Henry, with your steel driver’s pride,

You taught us that a man could go down like a man.

Sticking to your hammer till you died.

Sticking to your hammer till you died.

Brother,

When, beneath the burning sun

The sweat poured down and the breath came thick,

And the loaded hammer swung like a ton.

And the heart grew sick;

You had what we need now, John Henry.

Help us get it.

The connection between John Henry and manhood is clearly shown in some of the John Henry hammer songs. For example, below are some lines from one of those songs. It was sung by a gang of black workers in South Carolina.

If I could hammer like John Henry

If I could hammer like John Henry

I’d be a man Lawd

I’d be a man

(from Johnson p. 2)

A second example comes from two verses of another song.

Take a man

To use this hammer

Take a man

Like John Henry

Old John Henry

Died like a man,

Died like a man

With that old hammer

In his hand.

(from Johnson p. 79)

Considering that black people were denied their manhood and John Henry was such a powerful symbol of manhood, it should not be surprising that blacks sang about John Henry resisting and rebelling against his captain. Wouldn’t this great symbol of black manhood do what a real man would do? Wouldn’t a big and mighty man like him stand up for himself and fight back against being whipped or mistreated by the captain? For the African Americans who sang the rebel versions, John Henry may have been a symbol of fighting back against oppression. And when they sang about him, they may have imagined themselves in his place fighting back against their oppressors.

If John Henry was such an important symbol of manhood to African-Americans, then it is likely that he was also a symbol of freedom. This is because the black male’s manhood was closely linked with his struggle for freedom. Slavery—and the Jim Crow system which replaced it—robbed black men of not only their freedom but also their manhood. The connection between the two is made clear in the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the autobiography of black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass. Therein, Douglass gives an account of how a slave-breaker named Covey broke his spirit of resistance. He then writes, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man” and goes on to tell the story of how he regained that spirit—and his manhood—by standing up for himself and resisting being beaten by Covey until he finally triumphed over him in a two-hour struggle. Douglas wrote that the battle was a major turning-point in his life. It did not win him his freedom, but he explained that “It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood.” A second slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by Harriet Jacobs, contains another example of the link between manhood and the slaves’ struggle for freedom. Its fourth chapter contains an account of the events leading up to a male slave’s successful attempt to escape to the North and freedom. The link between manhood and freedom can be seen in that chapter’s title: “The Slave Who Dared to Feel Like a Man.”

Black people were still denied their manhood even after the end of slavery. In the days of Jim Crow, whites considered black males to be boys not men. This, despite the fact that the black worker—picking cotton on the plantations, constructing and repairing levees along the Mississippi, loading and unloading cargo carried on riverboats, and laying track and carving out tunnels for the railroads—contributed largely to turning America into an agricultural and industrial powerhouse. The black man was put on the same level as a beast of burden. In the eyes of the whites who put him to work, he could only be, at best, a “boy.” In 1928, bluesman Big Bill Broonzy wrote a song about this dehumanizing treatment titled “When Will I Get to be Called a Man?” It was a song in which Broonzy protested against always being called a boy including being treated that way in the U.S. Army, on the job, and on the chain gang.

At the time of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s—a century after the slaves were freed—the black male’s manhood was still closely linked to his struggle for freedom. We can observe this connection through the following statements made by and about that era’s two most influential black leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. In Why We Can’t Wait, King’s book about the Birmingham campaign of the civil rights movement, he wrote that white authority used the threat of “cruel and unjust punishment” to force black men to compromise their manhood. He also wrote, “To any Negro who displayed a spark of manhood, a southern law-enforcement officer could say: ‘Nigger watch your step, or I’ll put you in jail.’” The connection between manhood and freedom can also be seen in a statement made by African-American writer Ishmael Reed about Malcolm X; he called Malcolm X a “symbol of black manhood” and wrote that black men needed someone like him since manhood was “very much on the minds of black men during the sixties.” Also, at Malcolm X’s funeral, his friend Ossie Davis, an actor and civil rights activist, delivered a eulogy in which he stated, “Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood!”

The manhood--freedom connection can be seen in a slogan used by sanitation workers in their strike against the city of Memphis in 1968. Black workers went on strike complaining of discrimination, mistreatment, extremely low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions. Martin Luther King, Jr.—seeing the strike as a battle for economic justice—joined the strikers in their struggle. (King was assassinated at a Memphis hotel while the strike was in progress.) The workers carried signs which read “I AM A MAN” in capital letters. With the word “AM” underlined for emphasis, this four word statement served as a defiant response to those who held that if you were black you were not a man. Michael K. Honey's book about the strike, Going Down Jericho Road, includes a quote from a striker named Taylor Rogers who said, “‘I Am A Man' meant freedom. All we wanted was some decent working conditions, and a decent salary. And be treated like men, not like boys.”

Considering the connection between black manhood and freedom in relation to the rebel and complaint versions of "John Henry" leads to the possibility that, for many African Americans, the story of John Henry represented in some way their struggle for freedom. For them, singing the lines "If I could hammer like John Henry I'd be a man" may have actually meant If I could hammer like John Henry I'd be free. The legend of John Henry may have carried an unspoken message with it, a message of what it meant to be a black man and a free man, and of the price that black men would have to pay for that manhood and for attaining that freedom. A message such as this is what Bob Dylan may have heard in "John Henry"; he has cited the ballad (see the quote above from a speech Dylan gave in February 2015) as inspiring him to write the opening line of "Blowin' in the Wind", a song which became an anthem of the civil rights movement and which inspired Sam Cooke to write his classic civil rights-themed song, "A Change is Gonna Come." (See Note 2.)

For more on the connection between black manhood and freedom, see the book Louis Armstrong's New Orleans written by Thomas Brothers.

Coded resistance in the legend of John Henry

In addition to openly and directly challenging the captain in the rebel and complaint versions of the ballad, John Henry challenges his captain openly—but indirectly—in a good number of other documented versions. He does this through a variation to the third line of the “die with my hammer” verse. In this variation, the possessive pronoun “your” is used to identify the steam drill as belonging to the captain. (Of course, the drill belongs to the captain not in the sense of ownership, but in that he has responsibility for it, has control over its use, etc.)

John Henry said to his captain

“Well a man ain’t nothing but a man,

And before I’ll be beaten by your steam drill

I’ll die with my hammer in my hand,

I’ll die with my hammer in my hand.”

In the above verse, since the drill that John Henry challenges is referred to as the captain’s drill (i.e. your drill), the steel driver is also indirectly challenging the captain himself. From this point forward, this variation will be referred to as the “captain’s drill” variation.

Because the versions containing the “captain’s drill” variation encompass challenges to both the steam drill and the captain, they may be viewed as forming a link between the versions of the ballad containing lyrics which describe John Henry challenging the drill and the rebel versions which contain lyrics describing John Henry challenging his captain. The two different sets of versions may be viewed as two different sides of the same coin, a coded side and an uncoded side, with both carrying a message of opposition against the captain. This viewpoint suggests that, for at least some African Americans, the steam drill may have actually been seen as a coded substitute for the captain. I will explore this possibility below. But first I want to stress that I am not claiming that African Americans viewed the race with the drill as purely symbolic. Certainly, a large part of the appeal of the legend for black people (and white people) is that it is the story of one man's seemingly impossible victory over a powerful machine. But I do believe that, for at least some blacks, there may have been another layer of meaning to the legend with the drill serving as a substitute for the captain. It seems quite possible that an actual historical figure named John Henry raced a steam drill and singing about the event could have taken on a special coded meaning as the years passed and the legend grew and the ballad spread from place to place throughout the country.

Is it possible that the drill was a substitute for John Henry’s captain? It appears to be a valid possibility when you consider the fact that several black musicians have described using substitution in their lyrics to disguise protest. According to them, an angry complaint against a boss or some other white man could be expressed through substitution by singing about a mistreating woman or by cursing at a horse or mule. For example, in an interview with an African American researcher named Lawrence Redd, Brownie McGhee explained that when he sang about a woman doing him wrong, he was actually singing about a white man doing him wrong. This was “one way to get back at a man” according to McGhee. The same thing was expressed by another black musician, Willie Foster, who stated in a documentary on the life of David "Honeyboy" Edwards titled Honeyboy, that, as a sharecropper, he would sing “indirect songs” in response to mistreatment. He explained that while the lyrics he sang described a woman doing him wrong, he was actually singing about his boss doing him wrong. A third black musician, Willie King, has made a similar statement in the film Feel Like Going Home explaining that a singer would substitute a woman for his boss because singing a song of open complaint about your boss would lead to your body being found in the morning hanging from a tree. Also, instead of using a woman in place of the boss, a horse or mule could be used as a substitute. According to bluesman Big Bill Broonzy, a black man could curse at his boss by pretending that he was cursing at the horse or mule with which he was working. Broonzy's comments appear on the CD Blues in the Mississippi Night, which is a recording made by Alan Lomax of Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson I engaging in conversation and performing music.

Since black musicians and workers used symbolic substitutes to hide their protests and complaints about their bosses or other white men, it seems quite possible that a similar thing occurred with the song “John Henry.” Rather than risk openly singing about John Henry—a black man--challenging his white captain, blacks could have sung about it covertly by imagining John Henry challenging the steam drill to a race as a substitute for challenging the captain. If blacks used a woman or mule to represent their boss, they could have also used a steam drill to represent the captain. Therefore, it may be that the story of John Henry’s race with the drill carried a hidden message of resistance and was a coded counterpart to the rebel versions of the ballad in which John Henry challenges the captain openly and directly.

The fact that African Americans would use substitution or symbolism to covertly sing about being oppressed has been brought out by not only McGhee, Foster, King, and Broonzy, but also by W. C. Handy. Handy wrote about this subject in a newspaper article in which he discussed the significance of the blues. It was published in the year 1919 in two black newspapers, the Chicago Defender and the Indianapolis Freeman. Below is the article’s explanation of how the slaves used substitution in singing the spiritual “Go Down Moses” which deals with the Bible story in which God instructs Moses to ask Pharaoh to set the enslaved Israelites free.

Most “Blues” are ambiguous. They are modeled after the spiritual of slave days. The slave would sing, “Go down, Moses, tell old Pharaoh let my people go.” He had no interest in Pharaoh or Moses, but was thinking about his own freedom. But he dared not sing about himself so he sang of Pharaoh.

If, as Handy points out above, the slaves sang about freeing the Israelites in place of singing about themselves and their own desire for freedom, it certainly seems possible that the descendants of those slaves could have sung about John Henry defeating the steam drill as a substitute for singing about him defeating the captain. And it may be that when they sang about John Henry and his manhood, they were thinking of their own manhood and imagining themselves defeating their own captain or boss or any other man who might mistreat them. For African Americans, a people who had no power and no voice and seemingly no way to fight back against an oppressive system of white power, singing about John Henry--especially the rebel and complaint versions of the ballad--may have been a way for them to fantasize about standing up for themselves and fighting back.

NOTES

Note 1. The phrase "a man ain't nothin' but a man" appears in the verse which Guy B. Johnson identified as being the most frequently appearing verse among all the versions of the ballad included in his research study. Johnson's book, Tracking Down a Negro Legend, states that the verse appears in 32 of the 50 versions in the study. See page 138 of his book.

Note 2. Bob Dylan loosely borrowed the melody for "Blowin' in the Wind" from the old slave spiritual "No More Auction Block" (also known as "Many Thousands Gone"). During the period when he composed "Blowin' in the Wind", he wrote other songs with the theme of civil rights including "The Death of Emmett Till."

To go to Part 3 of this essay, scroll up to the top of this page and click on the link for Part 3 in the left hand column.

SOURCES: For sources, scroll up to the top of the page and click on the "Sources" link in the left hand column.

Copyright © 2013-2019 by James P. Hauser except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved.