The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #50747   Message #797360
Posted By: GUEST,garst@chem.uga.edu
05-Oct-02 - 10:13 AM
Thread Name: Origin Of John Henry--part TWO
Subject: RE: Origin Of John Henry--part TWO
Turtle Old Man writes of Colson Whitehead's book JOHN HENRY DAYS and its treatment of Guy Johnson, the black scholar who went in search of John Henry in the '20's.

It is true that the fictional Guy Johnson, in JOHN HENRY DAYS, is black.

The historic Guy Benton Johnson, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, was a gentlemanly southern white. He made a career of studies of race relations, and his wife related that he was once almost fired on account of his liberal views of black people.

IanC says he has a copy of the Blankenship broadside. If this is an original, then it is only the second that I know to exist, and it should be safeguarded.