Scrump, I'm not trying to beat on you about this, but it's more than just the act of picking cotton. You go down to the delta and
pick this whole field by hand
then tell me it's just an activity. Black people in Mississippi would look at you like you had lost your mind if folkies came down there singing "Pick a Bale of Cotton" for them. They would be polite because they are Southern, but would no doubt would dismiss you as being crazed.