The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #112352 Message #3987649
Posted By: GUEST,Harvey Reid
16-Apr-19 - 07:21 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Times Are Getting Hard Boys
Subject: RE: Origins: Times Are Getting Hard Boys
In the 1915 edition of the Journal of American Folklore (Vol 28) p. 140 E. C. Perrow in an essay called "Songs and Rhymes From the South" gives a short, racist song lyric collected in 1909 from the recitation of a Mississippi Negro names Mrs. Brown that goes: (notice the 2nd verse)
WHITE MAN GOES TO COLLEGE
(From Mississippi; negroes; recitation of Mrs. Brown; 1909.)
White man goes tuh college, Nigger goes tuh fiel',
White man learn tuh read an' write, Nigger learn tuh steal.
Times is gittin' mighty ha'd, Money gittin' mighty scace;
Soon's I sell my cot'n "n co'n, I'se gwine tuh leave dis place.
White man go tuh meetin", Can't get up a smile;
Nigger go tuh meetin',
Boys, yuh hyeuh him shout a mile.