To Seek A Newer World- With Alfred Lord Tennyson In Mind

To Seek A Newer World- With Alfred Lord Tennyson In Mind

 

 

 

 

I have used the expression “to seek a newer world” or variations of that expression any number of times the past several years when presenting sketches and pieces about what made my generation tick, the politically and culturally progressive active part of it anyway, who tried might and main to change the course of American history and sensibilities in the 1960s, my Generation of ’68 which I use for shorthand. The expression cribbed from a Bobby Kennedy pre-1968 presidential campaign book that I had read about what the world was in desperate need of in the face of the bloodbath in Vietnam and other pressing social problems who cribbed it from the 19^th century English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson seemed to me all these many cyberspace years later a fitting way to describe what the Generation of ‘68 was in search of. What we are still in search of since we have been, mostly unsuccessfully, fighting a rearguard action against the progeny of the night-takers we faced in the 1960s. Here, in any case, is the original poem from which Bobby (or his speechwriter although I sense that he probably picked that one himself) and I cribbed our expression.

Many of those sketches can be found on the American Left History blog.  

Ulysses

Ulysses

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson

About JW Player 6.12.4956...

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It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

         This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

         There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

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A View from The Left- LIU-Brooklyn-Teachers Stave Off Union Busting Attack, For Now

Workers Vanguard No. 1097	7 October 2016

LIU-Brooklyn-Teachers Stave Off Union Busting Attack, For Now

Permanent Jobs for Adjuncts! End the Two-Tier System!

For professors and librarians at the private Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus, the fall semester began with a union-busting attack by the administration: a 12-day lockout. Citing the “historical likelihood of a strike,” the university banned from campus hundreds of its full-time and part-time faculty represented by the Long Island University Faculty Federation (LIUFF) over Labor Day weekend. Faculty email accounts were blocked, health care coverage was cut off, and many LIU professors were forced to apply for unemployment. The administration brought in scabs—either administrators or unqualified replacement teachers. It was the first lockout of higher education faculty in the U.S. and it targeted a union that has repeatedly dared to strike in the past.

The lockout elicited outrage among students on the Brooklyn campus, which has the highest percentage of blacks, Latinos and women of all the LIU campuses. Gouged some $35,000 a year for tuition, they face a lifetime of paying back student loans. With the campus in chaos and classes taught by strikebreakers or canceled altogether, students accused LIU president Kimberly Cline of defrauding them. Daily student solidarity protests demanded, “Let them teach! Let us learn!”

Since she arrived in 2013, Cline has sought to promote a prettier picture to Wall Street by boosting LIU’s balance sheet at the expense of unionized workers. Four other unions on the Brooklyn campus have been working without contracts: secretarial and clerical workers, carpenters, engineers and maintenance workers, and janitors. Since March 2012, the clerical workers have not had any wage increase and are increasingly struggling to make ends meet as they’re forced to cover their health insurance premiums.

In the case of the LIUFF, the administration doggedly tried to bully the union into accepting a rotten contract and to drive a wedge between full-time faculty and low-wage adjuncts. The union was seeking pay parity with faculty at the LIU-Post campus in suburban Long Island, where full-time faculty make $10-15,000 more a year. For its part, the university proposed slashing adjuncts’ hours while gutting their benefits fund, increasing the workload of librarians, decreasing benefits to all new hires and implementing an onerous review process for tenured faculty.

The administration ended the lockout on September 15 after facing a barrage of negative publicity. While the union stood fast against attempts to pit sectors of the faculty against one another, the conflict at LIU-Brooklyn has merely been kicked down the road. LIUFF members returned to work while agreeing to continue negotiations. Dropping its demand for a five-week contract extension, the union accepted a nine-month extension, with wages and benefits remaining frozen. The university gloated over the union’s agreement “not to strike” for the course of the academic year, pleased that the possibility of strike action had been moved from the start of the semester to right before summer. In return, the administration acceded to a union request for a “professional mediator to facilitate a fair contract.” There should be no illusions in “neutral” mediation based on the false hope that a mediator will pressure management for concessions at the negotiating table in the absence of union struggle.

The fact that an employer could impose a lockout in New York City, a “union town” in a state that has the highest rate of union membership in the country, says volumes about the dire state of the unions and is bad news for the entire labor movement. Other unions clearly had a stake in defending the LIUFF, but the union tops did not even pull out their own members who kept on working during the lockout. Meanwhile, some faculty from LIU-Post, who are under a separate union contract, reportedly scabbed and taught classes at Brooklyn during the lockout. A crucial step to winning any labor struggle on the campus is shutting down the university. Students should have held support rallies outside, not inside, LIU’s gates and boycotted all classes. Picket lines mean don’t cross! All the campus workers should be in one union!

The LIUFF is a small union of professors, who constitute a petty-bourgeois layer without a lot of social weight. In order to win, they need to be under the wing of the broader union movement in New York City, from transit workers to Teamsters. The lockout elicited broad sympathy among workers across the city. But, disdaining the kind of battles it would take to beat back such attacks, the labor bureaucrats in the city offered little more than paper statements of “solidarity” while their own members crossed picket lines. The union misleaders did nothing to mobilize their members to build mass picket lines that could stop scabs and deliveries.

After the lockout ended, the LIUFF proclaimed victory at a press conference with a crop of city council members and union presidents, including Barbara Bowen of CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC) and Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, to which both LIUFF and PSC are affiliated. Weingarten and Co.’s main theme was unity against “the Trump effect.” Adorned with Hillary Clinton campaign garb, Weingarten appeared to be at a Democratic Party lovefest. Promoting the class-collaborationist myth of shared interests between labor and management, she proclaimed, “America is better than this divisiveness.”

Instead of forging a fighting alliance of the labor movement, the union misleaders pour money into electing “lesser-evil” capitalist politicians, as they did with Bill de Blasio and Barack Obama. Under the guise of school “reform,” the Obama administration has overseen a massive assault on public education and teachers unions. The starting point for successful class struggle is to break with the Democratic Party, which, no less than the Republican Party, represents the interests of the capitalist ruling class.

For Worker/Teacher/Student Control of the Universities!

Reflecting the trend in the rest of the country, tuition at LIU has risen drastically in the last couple decades. Since 1995, on average, tuition and fees at private universities have jumped 179 percent. With total student debt climbing to over $1.2 trillion, many recent graduates are headed for a bleak future of low-wage and temporary jobs and debt peonage. While full-time faculty salaries stagnate, a burgeoning layer of university administrators bathes in growing compensation. At LIU, the already-bloated salaries of top administrators doubled between 2008 and 2014. In 2014, President Cline made almost half a million dollars—the median income for a private university president.

This is all the more grotesque when one considers the university’s growing reliance on a supply of highly-educated but low-paid contingent faculty, or adjuncts. Decades ago, most college faculty members were tenured or tenure-track. Today, most are non-tenured, and half of those work part-time. Adjunct faculty members rely on temporary contracts with restricted hours, often having to teach at multiple schools. Generally lacking any means for voicing grievances or seeking advancement, a third of adjuncts live near or below the poverty line and one in four are enrolled in at least one public assistance program. A 2012 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “The Ph.D. Now Comes with Food Stamps,” detailed the condition of what is aptly termed “adjunctivitis”:

“Some are struggling to pay back student loans and cover basic living expenses as they submit scores of applications for a limited pool of full-time academic positions.... Many bounce on and off unemployment or welfare during semester breaks. And some adjuncts have found themselves trying to make ends meet by waiting tables or bagging groceries alongside their students.”

Hiring adjuncts is one way the campus administrations cut costs by not providing health insurance and other benefits. The proliferation of glorified temps at universities is an example of what is happening to the American working class in general. Temporary contract workers, who toil side by side with permanent employees for a fraction of the pay and no benefits, have been increasingly used to undermine union protections, divide the workforce and erode workers’ living standards.

The LIUFF is one of the very few faculty unions at a private institution, including both permanent and temporary instructors. Having gone on strike six times since it was formed in the early 1970s, the union has in recent years won some gains for adjuncts. In its last strike in 2011, adjuncts won paid office hours and maintained the benefits trust fund that helps to defray the cost of health insurance. We demand: Down with the two-tier system! All faculty should get permanent contracts, with the same benefits and job protections as tenure-track.

The fight to gain and extend union rights on campus is a fight against the administration, which runs the university on behalf of the ruling class. The universities train the next generation of ideologues, technocrats and managers needed by the capitalists to run their system. When it comes to the education of those the capitalists exploit and oppress, they invest only as much as they expect to realize in profit.

Private universities like LIU should be nationalized and run by those who work, teach and study there—abolish the administration! Against the race and class bias that permeates higher education under capitalism, we demand open admissions and no tuition with a paid living stipend, as part of the fight for the right to free, quality, integrated education for all. Such a perspective is linked to our fight for a socialist future where the resources and wealth of society are dedicated to the advancement of everyone and not to the exclusive benefit of a tiny capitalist class of filthy rich exploiters.

Debate - Who Should Progressives Support?

Debate TONIGHT! Who Should Progressives Support?

 

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TONIGHT! 7:30pm @ Northeastern University Dodge Hall Room 050 The 2016 Presidential Election is raising important questions for progressives.  First and foremost on most people's minds is how do we stop Donald Trump?  Is a vote for Hillary the best way to defeat Trump?  Or should progressives support the independent left-wing candidate Jill Stein?  Can the Democrats defuse the right wing, anti establishment wave that has led to Trump's popularity?  Or do we need to build a new party to the left of the Democrats and Republicans? TONIGHT: Come watch Northeastern Socialist Students go head to head with Northeastern College Democrats in what will surely be a lively and exciting debate.  There will be 30 minutes of debate and 30 minutes of audience contribution so you can share your thoughts too! This debate is free and open to the public.  You do not have to be a student to attend. If you have any questions about the debate or the pre-debate meeting, please email Elan at elanaxelbank@gmail.com. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors.

Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors.

To MAPA Nuclear Disarmament <mapa-nuclear-disarmament@googlegroups.com>  

Two must read articles:


From:
Jacqueline King <jackiedeeking@verizon.net>

Subject:
Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors.

Date:
October 25, 2016 3:38:30 PM EDT

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-the-foreign-policy-establishment-spoiling-for-more-war-look-at-their-donors/


and



https://www.thenation.com/article/no-matter-who-wins-the-election-military-spending-is-here-to-stay/

Honor An Historic Leader Of The American Abolitionist Movement-John Brown Late Of Harper's Ferry

Honor An Historic Leader Of The American Abolitionist Movement-John Brown Late Of Harper's Ferry  

 

Chapter Nine
Final Preparations

Kennedy Farmhouse, 1930 Unless otherwise noted, all images are from the Boyd B. Stutler Collection

“I had been acquainted with him [John Brown] since the 4th day of July, . . . but by the name of Smith. . . . He sat and talked with me awhile, and I finally asked him what he expected to follow there. I perhaps remarked to him, he could not more than make a living on the farm. 'Well,' said he, 'my business has been buying up fat cattle, and driving them on to the State of New York, and selling them, and we expect to engage in that again.' . . . There was nothing which induced me to suppose that his purpose was anything different from what he stated to me. I frequently missed him from there, and sometimes I would find him at home and the boys [Brown's sons] away. . . . Twice I went there and found none of the men there, but the two ladies, and I sat there on my horse--there was a high porch on the house, and I could sit there and chat with them--and then I rode off and left them." – Testimony of John C. Unseld to the Senate Select Committee Though he had been forced to postpone his plans after the Chatham Convention because of Hugh Forbes's letters, John Brown sent John E. Cook to Harpers Ferry in 1858 to investigate the area. John Brown, sons Owen and Oliver, and Jeremiah Anderson arrived in Harpers Ferry the following year, on July 3, 1859. A few days later, using the name Isaac Smith, Brown rented the farm of the late Dr. Booth Kennedy in Maryland, about 5 miles from Harpers Ferry. Meanwhile, John Henry Kagi, his second in command, was stationed at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, under the alias John Henrie, to receive and forward supplies. Watson Brown and Henry Thompson’s brothers William and Dauphin arrived on August 6. The remaining raiders—Osborne Perry Anderson, John Anthony Copeland, Barclay and Edwin Coppoc, Shields Green, Albert Hazlett, Lewis Sheridan Leary, William H. Leeman, Francis Jackson Merriam, Dangerfield Newby, Aaron Dwight Stevens, Stewart Taylor, and Charles Plummer Tidd—arrived between early August and mid October. Annie Brown Oliver and Martha Brewster Brown In order to avoid suspicion in the neighborhood, John Brown requested help from some female members of his family, and daughter Annie and daughter-in-law Martha, the wife of Oliver, arrived in the latter part of July. They remained until September 30, cooking and cleaning for the growing number of men at the Kennedy Farm. Life at the Kennedy Farm was very restrictive for the men. John Brown typically read from the Bible each morning, though many of the house’s inhabitants were not religious. The men spent most of the daylight hours in the attic, where they studied Hugh Forbes’s military manual and sometimes underwent in "a quiet, though rigid drill" under Aaron Stevens, the only raider with any regular military experience. They wrote letters, and, at times, they engaged in debate on different subjects. To avoid their discovery by neighbors, only at night could the men go outside. Some of the men found the confinement especially difficult; Albert Hazlett and William Leeman became so restless that they would go out in the woods and even visited John Cook in Harpers Ferry. As the weeks wore on, it became clear that many of the men John Brown expected to join him were not coming—including Luke Parsons, Charles Moffet, George Gill, Richard Realf, Richard Richardson, and others. He had assigned John Jr., who was still suffering from his experiences in Kansas and was not fit to join his father at Harpers Ferry, to travel through the East and Canada to recruit men, but these efforts were unproductive. The older John Brown tried without success to persuade Frederick Douglass to join him when they met in Chambersburg in August, returning from that trip, however, with Shields Green, a fugitive slave who had met Brown while the latter was staying with Douglass in early 1858. After several months of preparation and waiting for additional recruits, the plan was finally put into action. On Sunday, October 16, the Provisional Constitution was read to the men at the Kennedy Farm, some of whom had not heard it before, additional oaths were taken, and John Brown gave a series of orders concerning the upcoming mission. At 8 o’clock, after dark had fallen, Brown said: “Men, get on your arms; we will proceed to the Ferry.”

Owen Brown Watson Brown Oliver Brown William Thompson Dauphin Thompson Jeremiah Anderson O. P. Anderson John E. Cook John A. Copeland Barclay Coppoc Edwin Coppoc Shields Green Albert Hazlett John H. Kagi Lewis S. Leary William H. Leeman Francis Merriam Dangerfield Newby Aaron Stevens Stewart Taylor C. P. Tidd

Primary Sources:

Letter, John Brown to Mary Ann Brown, July 22, 1859
Letter, John Brown to John Brown Jr., August 1859 (from Sanborn, Life and Letters)
Letter, John Brown to Mary Ann Brown, August 2, 1859
Letter, John Brown to Mary Ann Brown, August 16, 1859
Letter, John Brown to Mary Ann Brown, September 8, 1859
Letter, John Brown to Mary Ann Brown, October 8, 1859
Testimony of John C. Unseld to the Senate Select Committee
Extract from A Voice from Harpers Ferry, by Osborne Perry Anderson
Documents relative to the Harpers Ferry Invasion appended to Governor Wise's Message

Secondary Sources:

Biographical Sketch of John Henry Keagy (Kagy), 1891

Table of Contents | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

*Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part One-The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Bob Gibson

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Gibson performing "Where I'm Bound".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001

"Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc One; Woody Guthrie on “Hard Travelin’”, Big Bill Broonzy on “Black , Brown And White”, Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”, Josh White on “One Meat Ball” Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”, Cisco Houston on “Midnight Special”, The Weavers on “Wasn’t That A Time”, Glenn Yarborough on “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue”, Odetta on “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain”, The New Lost City Ramblers on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on “San Francisco Bay Blues”, Peggy Seeger on “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Hoyt Axton on “Greenback Dollar” and Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”."

Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”. I have promised elsewhere in reviewing a CD of a trio including Tom Paxton and Bob Gibson done in Chicago the early 1980s (I think) that knocked me to review more of Bob Gibson’s work. I have not done so as yet but this version of the old country blues classic of a man who done wrong to do right by his woman only makes me think that I had better get to it soon. Bob Gibson, the more I read and hear, is one of those seminal figures who had much more talent that he could usefully use and therefore burned himself up in other pursuits. However, along the way everybody and their brother (or sister) wanted to know every single thing that Gibson knew. Hell, I think I do too.

Betty And Dupree
Lyrics: Traditional
Music: Traditional

This is only listed as having been played once by the Dead, in 1966, but was probably played on other occasions then.

Betty told Dupree, honey I will be your wife
Betty told Dupree, honey I will be your wife
Well we will be married, be happy all of our life

Wake up Betty, see what tomorrow brings
Wake up Betty, see what tomorrow brings
Well it might bring sunshine, and then it might bring rain

Betty told Dupree, honey I want a diamond ring
Betty told Dupree, honey I want a diamond ring
Dupree said Betty, honey I'll buy you anything

Betty told Dupree, honey I will be your wife
Betty told Dupree, honey I will be your wife
Well we will be so happy for the rest of our lives

Wake up Betty, see what tomorrow brings
Wake up Betty, see what tomorrow brings
Well it might bring sunshine, and then it might bring rain

It was also recorded by Pigpen with Jorma in 1964 (Jorma on vocals and guitar, Pig on harp).
Jorma/Pigpen version

Oh Betty told Dupree, I want a diamond ring
Now Betty told Dupree, I want a diamond ring
Dupree told Betty, Lord I'll get you most anything

He got himself a pistol, it was a forty-four
He got himself a pistol, it was a forty-four
Now to get that diamond ring, Lord he had to rob that jewellery store

Now the police caught him, carried him back to that county jail
Oh yes the police caught him, carried him back to that county jail
And they said go call your sweetheart, tell her to come and go your bail

Now Betty came to see him, but his face she could not see
Now Betty came to see him, but his face she could not see
And she said, mister jailer, give him this note from me

Oh babe I came to see you, but I could not see your face
Now babe I came to see you, but I could not see your face
You know I love you baby, just can't take your place

For completeness, here is another, fuller, traditional version.
Traditional version

Betty told Dupree, "I want a diamond ring"
Betty told Dupree, "I want a diamond ring"
Dupree told Betty, "l'Il give you most anything"

He said, "Lie down, little Betty, see what tomorrow brings"
He said, "Lie down, little Betty, see what tomorrow brings"
It may bring sunshine, may bring you that diamond ring

Then he got his pistol, went to the jewelry store
Then he got his pistol, went to the jewelry store
Killed a policeman and he wounded four or five more

Then he went to the post office to get the evening mail
Then he went to the post office to get the evening mail
Sheriff caught poor Dupree and put him in that old Atlanta jail

Dupree's mother said to Betty, "Look here what you done done"
Dupree's mother said to Betty, "Look here what you done done"
Made my boy rob and steal, now he is gonna be hung

Betty went to the jailhouse, she could not see Dupree
Betty went to the jailhouse, she could not see Dupree
She told the jailer, "Tell him these words for me"

I come to see you, baby, I could not see your face
I come to see you, baby, I could not see your face
You know I love you, but I cannot take your place

Sail on, sail on, sail on, Dupree, sail on
Sail on, sail on, sail on, Dupree, sail on
You don't mind sailing, you'll be gone so doggone long

*Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part One-The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Big Bill Broonzy

Click on to title to link to YouTube's film clip of Big Bill Broonzy performing "Black, Brown and White"



CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001



"Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc One; Woody Guthrie on “Hard Travelin’”, Big Bill Broonzy on “Black , Brown And White”, Jean Ritchie on “Nottamun Town”, Josh White on “One Meat Ball” Malvina Reynolds on “Little Boxes”, Cisco Houston on “Midnight Special”, The Weavers on “Wasn’t That A Time”, Glenn Yarborough on “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue”, Odetta on “I’ve Been Driving On Bald Mountain”, The New Lost City Ramblers on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp on “Betty And Dupree”, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on “San Francisco Bay Blues”, Peggy Seeger on “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Hoyt Axton on “Greenback Dollar” and Carolyn Hester on “Turn And Swing Jubilee”."


Big Bill Broonzy on “Black, Brown And White”. No small part of the folk revival concerned the hot topics of the day; nuclear disarmament, alienation, the fight against conformity and greed and, most importantly, the black civil rights struggle in the Southern United States (and later, much less successfully up North). Although Broonzy’s name or his songs do not come up automatically when that struggle is mentioned he nevertheless in an early day was himself, like Josh White who is also on this compilation and will be noted later, a transmission belt from the country sound to the more sophisticated urban sound as blacks began to leave the South in large numbers starting in the late 1920s. But here is the kicker- have things in 2009, notwithstanding a black president, changed all that much. “White your right, brown stick around, black get back” sound very familiar looking at any given day’s headlines.

"Black, Brown And White"

This little song that I'm singin' about
People you know it's true
If you're black and gotta work for a living
This is what they will say to you

They says if you was white, should be all right
If you was brown, stick around
But as you's black, m-mm brother, git back git back git back

I was in a place one night
They was all having fun
They was all byin' beer and wine
But they would not sell me none

They said if you was white, should be all right
If you was brown, stick around
But if you black, m-mm brother, git back git back git back

Me 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 cent

They said if you was white, 't should be all right
If you was brown, could stick around
But as you black, m-mm boy, git back git back git back

I went to an employment office
Got a number 'n' I got in line
They called everybody's number
But they never did call mine

They said if you was white, should be all right
If you was brown, could stick around
But as you black, m-mm brother, git back git back git back

I hope when sweet victory
With my 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, could stick around
But if you black, whoa brother, git back git back git back