A look at resistance, rebellion, and protest in the ballad and legend of John Henry (Part 4)

John Henry: The Rebel Versions

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

Resistance in versions of the ballad in which John Henry is not a race rebel

The focus of this website is to document that Black cultural resistance and protest are an important part of the legend of John Henry. I do this primarily by showing that a significant number of African Americans viewed John Henry as a race rebel, as evidenced by the various rebel and complaint versions of the ballad (discussed in Part 1 of this essay) from African American performers and informants in which John Henry challenges or complains to his captain and thereby resists being beaten, overworked, underpaid, or some other form of mistreatment. These acts of resistance by the powerful and heroic John Henry can be seen as symbolic representations of black rebellion against the system of exploitation established by the white ruling class. As such, they are threats to the existing racial hierarchy.

In addition to the versions of the ballad which portray John Henry as a race rebel, there are others in which resistance and protest are expressed in another way. These other versions are the focus of the discussion below. In them, protest is expressed in various ways including descriptions of the cruelty and abuse that John Henry and other black laborers suffered at the hands of the Captain and the system which exploited them. Specific examples of these versions are listed and discussed in some detail below. They highlight the stark realities of the world in which John Henry and other black men and women lived and worked, realities which should be kept in mind when analyzing and interpreting the possible meaning the ballad held for these people.

1. Furry Lewis's "partner falling dead" versions of "John Henry"

Bluesman Furry Lewis made a long string of "John Henry" recordings, and there is a verse which appears in at least three of them in which John Henry looks at the sun and then looks at his work partner and sees him falling dead. One of the recordings appears on the album Fourth and Beale which was recorded in 1969. The "falling dead" verse and a link to the recording are below. (The "falling dead" verse is the last verse of the recording.)

John Henry looked at the sun one day,

And the sun had done turned red.

And he looked back over his shoulder, Lord,

And he see'd his partner fallin' dead, dead, dead.

Link to Furry Lewis version on his Fourth and Beale album

The verse also appears in another Lewis recording of "John Henry" on the album Take Your Time. It was also recorded in 1969. A transcription of the verse is below. (In this version, the verse appears in the middle of the song.)

John Henry looked at the sun,

And the sun had done turned red.

And he looked back over his shoulder, Lord,

And he see'd his partner fallin' dead, dead.

I see my partner fallin' dead dead
(Lewis sings this last line and variations to it several times before moving on to the next verse.)

In his book The Country Blues, Samuel Charters included a transcription (see below) of another performance of "John Henry" by Lewis which contains the "falling dead" verse. (See Note 4.)

John Henry looked at the sun one day

The sun had done turned red.

He looked back over his shoulder, Lord,

He seen his partner falling dead.

My partner's falling dead

The book was published in 1959, 10 years before the two Lewis recordings of "John Henry" cited above. Considering the fact that there are at least three instances of Lewis singing this particular verse in performances of "John Henry," it is clear that his use of the verse did not result merely from spur of the moment improvisation. Rather, the verse clearly held importance for Lewis in relation to the story of John Henry, and it apparently held that importance for at least the 10 year period spanning the publication of Charters's book in 1959 to Lewis's two recordings of the ballad in 1969.

Lewis adapted the verse from one contained in the African American Texas prison work song "Go Down Ol' Hannah." Hannah is the name that the convicts gave to the sun. Below is the verse as it appears (including parenthetical explanatory comments from the performer) in one of several versions of "Go Down Ol' Hannah" included in Bruce Jackson's book Wake Up Dead Man: Hard Labor and Southern Blues. It can be interpreted as a protest against convicts being forced to work in the fields of prison farms, work which was done under the blistering Texas sun for exhaustingly long hours and at a brutal pace.

Well I look at old Hannah,

She was turnin' red, ("Means it's late in the evenin'")

Well I look at my partner, ("That's the one on the row with you")

He was almost dead.

Furry Lewis's inclusion in "John Henry" of a variation to the above "Go Down Ol' Hannah" verse suggests the possibility that he saw John Henry as a convict laborer--or some other type of forced laborer--compelled to work under oppressive, life-threatening conditions. Another possibility is that Lewis saw him as a free laborer (i.e. not working in involuntary servitude) who was subjected to such conditions. Either way, Lewis's use of the verse suggests he regarded John Henry and his fellow steel drivers as victims. Additionally, the verse appears to be a protest which unites John Henry's legendary heroic struggle with the heroic struggles of men trying to survive extremely oppressive working conditions.

2. Virgil Perkins's "hands getting cold" version of "John Henry"

In addition to Furry Lewis's "John Henry," another recording of the ballad which borrows a verse from a black work song is a version by a black skiffle musician named Virgil Perkins which appears on the Folkways Records album Folk Music U.S.A., Volume 1. The verse and a link to the recording are below. Perkins begins the verse with John Henry making a complaint to his captain (first two lines), and then ends it with the captain's response (last two lines). (see Note 1.)

John Henry said to his captain

He said, "Captain, my hands gettin' cold."

He said, "That don't make no difference, boy, what you said.

I wanna hear that hammer roll."

Link to Virgil Perkins version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIWACYX2Lns

The above verse is a variation to a verse (see below) found in a work song titled "Grade Song." The lyrics to "Grade Song" appear in Howard Odum's article "Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes" which was published in the year 1911 in the Journal of American Folklore. The song includes a number of short verses in which complaints and a threat are made to or about the captain. The verse also appears in a song collected by Lawrence Gellert titled "Told My Captain" which appears in his book Me and My Captain: Chain Gang Negro Songs of Protest (published in 1939).

Told my captain my han's wus cold.
"God damn yo' hans, let the wheelers roll!"

The "Captain, my hands are cold / let the wheelers roll" couplet also took the form of an anecdote; it appears in that form in Daryl Cumber Dance's book Shuckin' 'and Jivin': Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans (published in 1978). Dance writes that the telling of the anecdote among a group of elderly black men evoked painful memories of suffering abuse on the job which was inflicted by the white bosses. (A "wheeler" is a wheelbarrow or similar piece of equipment. In Dance's book, it is described as a "scoop with two wheels.")

Virgil Perkins's inclusion of the "Captain, my hands gettin' cold" verse in "John Henry" may be interpreted as a protest against the way black laborers were treated. The captain is portrayed as a callous overseer who demeans John Henry by addressing him as "boy" and has no concern about the effect of the cold on John Henry's hands. The captain's only concern is for the work to go on as he requires John Henry to continue hammering so that he can hear the hammer "roll."

The last line of the verse--'I wanna hear that hammer roll'--sets the verse in sharp contrast with those in other versions of the ballad which make reference to the sound of John Henry's hammer. Two examples from these other versions are below. The first one is from a performance by Arthur Bell which was recorded in an Arkansas prison named Cummins State Farm. The second one appears in Alan Lomax's book American Ballads and Folk Songs.

Well, every Monday morning,
When the bluebirds begin to sing,
You can hear those hammers a mile or more,
You can hear John Henry's hammer ring,
Oh Lordy, hear John Henry's hammer ring.

Link to Arthur Bell's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAVNFfgCvSs

John Henry, he had a woman,
Her name was Mary Magdalene,
She would go to de tunnel and sing for John,
Jes' to hear John Henry's hammer ring,
Lawd, Lawd, jes' to hear John Henry's hammer ring.

In versions of John Henry such as in the two examples above, John Henry's hammer makes a ringing sound (as opposed to the rolling sound heard by the captain) and its ring is described in poetic terms and/or is appreciated for some outstanding quality, possibly its great musicality, power, or beauty. But in the version by Perkins, the captain appreciates the sound of John Henry's hammer not because it is beautiful or powerful, but because it represents progress being made on the job. John Henry's hammer provides no aesthetic pleasure to the captain; he hears no poetry in it--only profit.

3. Junius E. Byrd's "run me like an oxen team" version of "John Henry"

Several verses expressing protest are in one of the longest versions of "John Henry" published in Guy B. Johnson's book John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend. It was collected from a black student named Junius E. Byrd who attended the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute. Protest is clear in the three verses below as John Henry is at odds with his boss, and the boss is portrayed as a cruel taskmaster. (see notes 2 and 3)

In one of the verses, a complaint is made about being worked as hard as a team of oxen (spelled "oxyen" in the lyrics).

(from page 73 of Johnson)
Lordy, Lord,
Why did you send dat steam?
Lordy, Lord,
Why did you send dat steam?
It's caused de boss man to run me,
Run me like a oxyen team.

In another verse, a laborer--possibly John Henry himself--asks the boss to leave him alone.

(from page 73 of Johnson)
Boss man, listen,
Listen to my plea.
Boss man, listen,
Listen to my plea.
I'll work half de night
If you just let me be.

And in another verse, the boss tells a laborer that he will not "beat dat steam." This appears to be a reference to the contest against the steam drill; therefore, the boss's statement is probably directed towards John Henry. The laborer--again, probably John Henry--responds by stating that he will be the boss's slave if he fails to beat the drill.

(from page 74 of Johnson)
Boss man said,
"You'll never beat dat steam."
Boss man said,
"You'll never beat dat steam."
"But if I don't beat it,
I'll be your slave till I'm lean."

The first verse above from Byrd's version brings up an important aspect of the John Henry story which I believe has not been considered in the writings I've come across. What I am referring to is that if the steam drill was a threat to the jobs of steel drivers like John Henry it was also a threat to the jobs of the men who oversaw the work of the steel drivers. John Henry's captain and other captains or bosses who were in charge of laborers building railroad tunnels may have responded to this threat by trying to increase the productivity of the laborers by driving them to work much harder. The "run me like a oxyen team" verse describes the resentment that the steel drivers must have felt over being forced to work harder.

4. The "Don't be a steel driving man" versions of "John Henry"

Another element of resistance in the John Henry ballad is a verse in which John Henry instructs or asks his son to avoid becoming a steel driver himself. For example, in the late 1920s, Furry Lewis recorded a long two-part version of the ballad (released as two sides of a 78-rpm record) with Part One containing the verse below. Lewis's two-part 78-rpm recording is available on several compilations including the CD Furry Lewis (1927-1929): Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order on the Document Records label.

John Henry had a little baby,

Which he sit in the palm of his hand

Cryin' '"Baby, baby, take your daddy's advice,

Don't you never be a steel drivin' man, man,

Don't never be a steel drivin' man, man."

Link to transcription containing the above lyrics by Furry Lewis: https://weeniecampbell.com/wiki/index.php?title=John_Henry_(The_Steel_Driving_Man)_Take_1

This particular verse expresses a type of resistance similar to that expressed in the hammer songs which contain a verse in which a steel driver gives his hammer to another man and asks him to take it to the captain and bring him the news that he has abandoned his place on the job. An example is below. (See Part 1 of this website for more examples of hammer songs.)

(from Guy B. Johnson's John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend, page 76)
Take this hammer,

Hammer to the captain.

Take this hammer,

Hammer to the captain.

Tell him I'm gone

Lawd, Lawd, tell him I'm gone.

Both the "Tell the captain I'm gone" verse and the "Don't be a steel driving man" verse serve as rejections of the hammer and the work of steel driving. One verse expresses it with a steel driver turning in his hammer and leaving his job, while the other expresses it through John Henry showing concern for his son by requesting that he not become a steel driver. Additional examples of the "Don't be a steel driving man" verse are below.

(version performed at the end of "Jook", the final scene of Zora Neale Hurston's play Cold Keener: A Revue)
John Henry had a lil baby
Holdin' him in his right hand.
Says, "lil baby don't you cry,
You'll never be a steel drivin' man,
You'll never be a steel drivin' man."

(version of "John Henry" recorded by the Williamson Brothers and Curry under the title "Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand." The recording is included on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music.)
John Henry had but one only child
Fit in the palm of your hand
The very last words John Henry said,
"Son, don't be a steel-drivin' man, Lord, Lord,
Son, don't be a steel-drivin' man."

Link to recording by Williamson Brothers and Curry containing the above lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmcGFgeD83M

(version from page 120 of Louis Chappell's John Henry: A Folk-Lore Study)
John Henry had one only son,
He could stand up in the pa'm of your hand;
And the very last word John Henry said was
'Son don't be a steel driving man,
Son, don't be a steel driving man.' (See note 5.)

(version from a recording by Riley Puckett and Gid Tanner as transcribed on page 107 of Guy B. Johnson's John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend)
John Henry had just only one son,
He could stand in the pa'm of your hand.
Last words that John Henry said,
"Son, don't be a steel-drivin' man." (See note 5.)

The sentiment expressed by John Henry in the "Don't be a steel driving man" verse contrasts sharply with the idea that he competed against the steam drill in a race in order to save his job and the jobs of his fellow steel drivers. The "Don't be a steel driving man"verse is almost the antithesis of this idea. The verse implies that the jobs are not worth saving. Or at least not worth saving for the next generation. And definitely not worth saving for someone John Henry deeply loved: his own son.

The "don't be a steel driving man" verse can be particularly striking to those who are familiar with some of the documented versions of the ballad containing a verse in which John Henry tells his son that he wants him to become a steel driving man or that he will become a steel driving man. Variations to this verse include ones in which John Henry's son himself declares that he will be or wishes to be a steel driver. These verses contrast sharply with the "don't be a steel driving man" verses in that they serve to embrace, rather than reject, the hammer and the occupation of steel driving.

Two examples of these verses are below. They were published in Johnson's book and were sent to him by white folklorist Onah Spencer. Spencer's version is very long and appears to be a collection of verses which he gathered from various versions of "John Henry." According to Johnson, Spencer told him that he lived in a black village in Cumminsville, Ohio (near Cincinnati) for 25 years, and his sources were workers in the area who were newly arrived from the South. (See note 6.)

(from Johnson, page 98)

John Henry took that liddle boy,

Helt him in the pahm of his han',

And the last words he said to that chile was,

"I want you to be a steel drivin' man,

I want you to be a steel drivin' man."

(from Johnson, page 98)

John Henry ast that liddle boy,

Now what are you gonna be?

Says, "If I live and nothin' happen,

A steel drivin' man I'll be,

A steel drivin' man I'll be."

Additional versions containing verses such as the two above appear on page numbers 98, 101, 102, 103, and 111 of Johnson's book and page numbers 103, 112, and 114 of Chappell's book.

So where did the "don't be a steel driving man" verse come from? How did it originate? It probably largely sprang from singers of the ballad viewing and identifying with John Henry as a victim of racial and economic exploitation. From the time that the John Henry legend first took shape in the late 19th century until well into the 20th century--a period during which the United States was transitioning from a rural, agricultural economy to a modern, more urban and industrial economy--many free and imprisoned black men were exploited in the construction of tunnels, roads, railroads, and levees and in the mining, lumber, and steel manufacturing industries in ways similar to the ways in which they had been exploited for hundreds of years as slaves in the South's cotton, rice, tobacco, and sugarcane fields. (This exploitation is documented in a number of books including Douglas A. Blackmon's Pulitzer Prize winning Slavery by Another Name.) Much of this non-agricultural work was strenuous and extremely dangerous, so dangerous that a large number of these laborers lost their lives. Many others suffered disabling injuries and endured various brutalities perpetrated upon them by armed guards, bosses, and overseers. Certainly, a substantial number of these men would have interpreted the John Henry legend and sung about it in a way that fit with their own experiences. Since they were victims, they would have imagined John Henry as a victim also. And in singing about John Henry telling his son not to be a steel driving man, they were commenting upon and thereby protesting John Henry's victimization and their own victimization. And they were also protesting the most painful things of all: the inevitability of each one of their own sons and daughters suffering through the same or a similar victimization, and the hard reality that there was nothing they could do to prevent this fate from befalling their children.

5. Furry Lewis's "Don't you never take no pattern after me" verse

Furry Lewis sang a variation to the "Don't be a steel driving man" verse in a recording of "John Henry" which appears on the album Shake 'Em On Down, a reissue of two albums from 1961 titled Back On My Feet Again and Done Changed My Mind which were recorded at Sun Studios in Lewis's hometown of Memphis. The verse from that recording is transcribed below and a link to the recording is below the transcription.

John Henry had a little baby boy

He was settin' at home on his mother's knee.

Cryin' "Baby take your Daddy's advice,

Don't you never take no pattern after me, Lord, Lord..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqvZwFRceO8&spfreload=10

In the "Don't you never take no pattern after me" verse, Lewis makes a more strongly worded and broader protest than the protest in the "Don't be a steel driving man" verse. The "Don't you never take no pattern after me" verse is not just a rejection of the hammer and the occupation of steel driving; it goes much further than that. It has John Henry telling his son to not follow in his footsteps or hold him up as a role model. In other words, John Henry is rejecting the way in which he has lived his own life, or he is at least seeing it as undesirable for his own son. In singing this verse--in having the words "Don't you never take no pattern after me" come from John Henry's mouth--Lewis may have been going as far as rejecting the most celebrated part of the John Henry legend: the battle with and victory over the steam drill. Lewis may have been dismissing the glorification of John Henry's victory, a victory which Lewis may have seen not as a triumph but as resulting in a tragically foolish and wasteful loss of life.

6. W. A. Bates's Payroll verse

Guy B. Johnson's book John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend has a version of "John Henry" from an African American named W. A. Bates which includes a verse containing a protest against the common practice among levee construction camp and other work camp contractors of withholding or delaying wage payments to their laborers. The verse is below.

(from page 118 of Johnson)

Captain, captain, O captain,

You oughter be ashame,

You have called the pay roll

And never called my name

During the days of Jim Crow, delaying paydays for extended periods of time allowed contractors to cheat workers out of their earnings by forcing them to make purchases at the commissary (company store). When their pay was late in coming, workers were left with no alternative but to buy food and supplies on credit from the commissary, and commissaries typically charged prices well above those in other stores. The amount each worker owed to the commissary was deducted from his wages. According to an often cited article written by Roy Wilkins titled "Mississippi Slavery in 1933" which appeared in the April 1933 issue of the NAACP publication The Crisis, "If paydays are dragged out two and three months apart with commissary prices at the pleasure of the contractor, a workman has only a dollar or two of cash money coming to him at the end of three months." (See Note 7.) The complaint made in the above verse -- "You have called the pay roll and never called my name"-- must be from a worker (or possibly even John Henry himself) whose earned wages amounted to less than what he owed to the commissary with the end result of receiving no pay at all.

The frustrations and anger of black workers over this practice of fleecing them out of their earnings can be heard in their music, including a recording by Gene Campbell titled "Levee Camp Man Blues." Two verses of Campbell's song are below.

These contractors, they are getting so slack

These contractors, they are getting so slack

They'll pay you half of your money, and hold the other half back

There ain't but two men, that gets paid off

There ain't but two men, that gets paid off

That's the commissary clerk, and the walkin' boss

Link to recording of "Levee Camp Man Blues" by Gene Campbell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW9AVKminec

A second song which serves as an example of black laborers' resentment of this practice is a version of the ballad "Po' Lazarus" (also known as "Bad Man Lazarus") which appears in Harold Courlander's book Negro Folk Music U.S.A. Po' Lazarus was a legendary figure, possibly based upon an actual black levee camp worker, who robbed the commissary of the camp which employed him. Two verses from Courlander's book are below. The second verse, which contains the line "He been paid off," indicates that Lazarus was motivated to rob the commissary because he had been a victim of the contractor's practice of withholding wages from workers.

(from pages 179-180 of Courlander)

Oh, bad man, Lazarus,

Oh, bad man, Lazarus,

He broke in the commissary,

He broke in the commissary.

He been paid off.

He been paid off.

Lord, Lord, Lord,

He been paid off.

A third musical example can be found in the lyrics to an old levee camp song in Alan Lomax's The Land Where the Blues Began in the chapter titled "The Levee." In one verse, a workman asks his boss (Mister Cholly) if the payroll money has arrived in camp, and the boss responds that the boat carrying the payroll has been delayed due to fog on the river. That verse is followed by a verse in which the workman asks the boss to give him a dime, and the boss refuses by responding that the workman already owes a dime (See Note 8). In the next verse, the workman asks for payment of his wages with the phrase "Just gimme my time," and the boss again refuses, telling the worker he already owes money.

(from pages 225-226 of Lomax's The Land Where...)

"Mister Cholly, Mister Cholly

Did the money come?"

He say, "The river too foggy,

And the boat don't run,

Oh-oh-oh-oh, the boat don't run.

I ax Mister Cholly just to gimme one dime,

Just gimme one dime.

He say, "Go long nigger,

You a dime behin,

Oh-oh-oh-oh, you a dime behind."

"Mister Cholly, Mister Cholly,

Just gimme my time."

He say, "Go on, ol nigger,

You time behin,

Oh-oh-oh-oh, you time behind."

The contractors' practice of delaying wage payments to workers is documented in at least several books dealing with African American music and history, including the book by Lomax cited above (The Land Where the Blues Began) and another book titled Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942. The latter source is particularly interesting because it contains the writings of several black researchers who worked with Lomax. In it, Lewis W. Jones writes of two legends in which black workers refused to be cheated out of their wages. According to one, after a contractor said that the next pay day would take place "when it snowed in Mississippi," the contractor found himself in the commissary with a gun pointing at him held by a worker named Black Snake who "informed" him the "snow done fell; we gonna have a pay day." In another story, when a newly hired worker was not paid for his first two weeks of labor, he went looking for the contractor, found him in the commissary, and forced him to pay the wages he had earned. The story ends by highlighting the fearlessness of the worker as he, in effect, issues a challenge to the contractor by telling him he can find him in Friars Point (a town in Coahoma County, Mississippi) if he chooses to go after him.

Po' Lazarus and the other two badmen discussed above were heroes for challenging the white power structure, and the narrative voice in W.A. Bates's payroll verse (in his version of "John Henry" above) is a hero for the same reason as he calls out his captain and tells him he ought to be ashamed of withholding his wages from him. His challenge to the captain is in the form of an even more direct and blunter complaint than the complaint issued by John Henry to his own captain in the complaint versions of the ballad. (See Part 1 of this website for the complaint versions.) In Bates's payroll verse, we see -- just as we saw in the complaint versions -- an African American crossing over the boundary of what white people in the Jim Crow south considered to be acceptable behavior for a black man in addressing or interacting with a white man, especially a white man who happened to be his boss.

NOTES: (Due to revisions and additions, the notes in the above text are not in numerical order.)

Note 1. Samuel Charters recorded the performance by Perkins. For more on Perkins, see the book by Charters titled A Language of Song: Journeys in the Musical World of the African Diaspora.

Note 2. Johnson's book classifies Byrd's version as a hammer song. The lyrics are a mix of hammer song lyrics and ballad-type lyrics dealing with John Henry's race with the steam drill.

Note 3. The Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute was a black college which was founded in 1882 and originally named the Virginia Normal and College Institute. Over the years, its name was changed to the Virginia Normal and Industrial College, Virginia State College for Negroes, Virginia State College, and its current name, Virginia State University.

Note 4. Charters did not identify the particular recording from which his transcription was done. I have attempted to identify it, but have not succeeded. Possibly the recording has never been released.

Note 5. The verse from page 120 of Louis Chappel's book appears in a very long version of the ballad which Chappell received from a man named C. J. Wallace of Charleston, West Virginia. Many of the verses in Wallace's version of "John Henry" are strikingly similar to the verses in an old sound recording made by country music performers Riley Puckett and Gid Tanner. These two versions are similar both in their lyrics and in the order of appearance of the verses. The similarity is so strong that it seems highly likely that the Puckett/Tanner recording was a heavy influence on Wallace's version, or vice versa. Or possibly they were both heavily influenced by a third version. Guy B. Johnson's transcription of the Puckett/Tanner version's "don't be a steel drivin' man" verse is above, and it appears on page 107 of Johnson's book. The book identifies the Puckett/Tanner recording as Columbia Record, 15019-D and notes that Puckett and Tanner recorded another version which is 15142-D on Columbia.

Note 6: Spencer told Johnson that the ballad was used to '[initiate] the new help to the spirit of the job, for if there was a slacker in a gang of workers it would stimulate him with its heroic masculine appeal.'

Note 7: According to the article by Wilkins, while workers complained about the various ways in which they were exploited by contractors, they complained most about the system of irregular pay days. Wilkins writes, "The men grumble over the small pay, the long hours, the cursing, the beating, the food, the tents, the commissary fleecing, but they reserve their greatest bitterness for the contractor who 'won't pay you even that little you got coming.'"

Note 8: The workman may owe money due to credit purchases at the commissary or as a result of having borrowed money from the boss himself. According to the book Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942 (see page 38), bosses took advantage of the contractors' practice of delaying paydays by advancing money to workers at high rates of interest.

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

Copyright © 2016-2020 by James P. Hauser except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved.