All I can provide here is saying that Carry me back to old Virginey was written by an African American or so I have been told. I am sure they (African Americans) wrote a wide variety of songs...and I am secretly convinced that they liked some of the Stephen Foster songs and sang them...can you confirm or deny? Like Old Black Joe..I can never understand why that is supposed to be offensive. It sounds respectful, very, to me, and the story I read was that he wrote it about an elderly man he knew and had promised him he would write him a song... I hate not to sing it because it was the favorite song of an almost-brother to me who died in Vietnam. mg