This version of the song is woven into Leadbelly's life. You could read about it in The Life and Legend of Leadbelly. He said that he and Blind Lemon Jefferson sang it on the streets in 1912. In 1947 Leadbelly wrote a kind of personal testament about racism based on the song, which is one of the strongest statements about race in the period -- but it was archived away probably because it was so inflammatory (also it has to be said it was semi-literate). One of his versions is on the album "The Titanic" from Rounder records. Yours, Peter