I learned something interesting about "Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll" only recently, probably from some bit of DVD "commentary" or "special features" accompanying one of the several recent Dylan films.

The song was written very shortly after the infamous Birmingham church bombing. When every other topical-songwriting folkie was trying to compose something about that particular event and the little girls who were killed, Bob chose instead to write about an entirely different instance of death-by-racial-injustice, in another locality, but (of course) at just about the same time.

One commentator's theory is that this approach may have served to indicate the universality of the problem, that the currently-infamous bombing was not an isolated incident.

Racial violence was not ancient history at the time of the civil rights revolution is the early-to-mid sizxties. The diehard segregationists were not willing to concede defeat willingly or easily, and perpetrated as much mayhem as they could before they inevitably faded into obsolesence.