You make a good point, but I still have my doubts. One of the things I'll be looking at in my essay is why Stagolee was such an important hero--Zora Neale Hurston called him a culture hero--for African Americans. It's a question I've been grappling with for a long time. It's easy to see why a "bad" man like Stagolee was a figure of solidarity for black men in the sixties, especially the militant Black Panthers like Bobby Seale. But why would a guy who seems to kill another man in cold blood be such a hero. And what is so "bad" about Stagolee killing a man who appears to be unarmed--men were killed on Beale street in Memphis almost every night back in the days of Jim Crow so killings like Stagolee's shooting Billy were probably common. Cecil Brown says that the Stetson is the key to understanding the ballad and I will get into that in my essay, and take Brown's explanation of the Stetson as a symbol of manhood further by arguing that if it was a symbol of manhood it would have also been a symbol of freedom.

Cecil Brown wrote that Stagolee is rooted in police brutailty, but he doesn't really elaborate on that to provide a satisfactory explanation (at least not in my opinion). And James Cone wrote that Stagolee's victories were our [African American] victories, and that Stagolee represented the triumph of the weak over the strong. Unfortunately, he doesn't provide any explanation for his statements. My essay will explore the possibilities.

I'll follow up on this post once the essay is done and posted on my website, but it will probably be a couple months.