Hi Azizi,

Sounds like a cool book/project! It will be especially interesting to hear your analyses of these rhymes in terms of their possible impact on ethnic/racial dynamics, as you suggested. It would be an understatement to say that in that particular town (in which I grew up till age 8) there was some sort of (atypical?) transformation going on with respect to people's ethnic/racial attitudes.   For one, it was a majority African-American suburb in the Northeast. Second, it had recently been awarded the title of an "All American City," which I believe is usually given out based on perception of diversity. We even had a town song, which we sang in school, that bragged about being an "All American City."

Of course, as a kid I never thought about these things at the time. When recently I mentioned, to my parents, my memory of my fondness for the song "Ebony and Ivory," which I'd sing to myself for hours while swinging on swings, they laughed and said "It figured!"--something about that town I guess, a vibe (an agenda?) that I wouldn't have noticed being born there, but must have struck them as different from the (other) towns/environments they grew up in.

Hopefully sometime soon I'll get a chance to ask my sis (2-3 years my senior) about some of the rhymes she remembers.

Gibb