Hi Diane -
Don't even know if this will get through. I just saw this site, and saw you ask about a song my grandmother taught me and used to sing to me when I was little. I'm now 60 years old.

Lilac trees are blooming in the corner by the gate; Mammy in her little cabin door
Curly headed pickaninnie coming home so late, crying cause his little heart is sore,
All the children playin round have been so white and fair, and none of them with him would ever play,
So Mammy in her lap, takes the weeping little chap, and says in her kind old way:

Now honey you stay in your own back yard, don't mind what those white childs do,
What do you suppose they're a goin to give, a black little coon like you,
Just stay on this side of the white board fence and honey don't cry so hard,
just go out and play just as much as you please, but stay in your own back yard.

Every day the children as they passed old Mammy's place, comin home from school at night or noon,
peering through the fence to see this eager little face, such a wistful, lonesome little coon.
Till one day his little face was gone forever more; God had called this dusky little elf,
Now Mammy in the door, sits and rocks as oft before, and croons to her old black self:

Then you repeat the stanza above

Hope this helps. My grandmother sang us lots of sad old songs like this.

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-Joe Offer-