Hello, all. Sharon from the Philadelphia PA area here (near the Mason-Dixon line!). Just read through this conversation, and a couple of thoughts have occurred to me that I haven't seen a mention of, thus far:

One of the offensive things about the term "pickaninny", in addition to those discussed, is that "ninny" itself is a derogatory term meaning idiot, fool, simpleton, one with a low IQ, or one with severe mental retardation. According to Webster's Revised Unabridged dictionary, it is derived from the Italian and Spanish words for babies/children (as noted here). So, "pickaninny" doesn't just mean "little children" in a purely etymological sense, it DENOTES a person with the mind of a very young child... which was a stereotype of African slaves widely used by "whites" as a justification for the perpetuation of slavery (i.e. that these were people who COULD not survive on their own as freemen and freewomen because they were not intelligent enough to care for themselves properly). This dreadful stereotype lingered throughout the Jim Crow era and still lurks in some minds today.

Another point I wish to make is that Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933) lived during that Jim Crow era and grew up in the deep South, so I'm willing to bet that when HE sang "pickaninnies" he was using the word as his contemporaries used it, not as someone in Europe today would use it. Whether he meant it to be derogatory or not, it was a commonly used word with the commonly accepted meaning "black workers of limited mental capacity" (be they children or adults).

Wesley, I'm glad to see that you intend to change the lyric for performance of Rodgers's song. Given that it will be performed in the southern US, I doubt that you would need to preface the song with an explanation of the revision; I'm sure your audience is all too familiar with the fact that songs of Rodgers's era contained such derogatory terms -- and worse ones. Bringing up the subject would be akin to picking the scab off an old wound. Let it heal.