You cannot change history you can only hope to learn from its lessons
to alter something sung for hundreds of years in various versions even
according to the singer of the moment for whatever the reason is to
make it into a lie.Mark Twain wrote a moving account of a young white
lad with a fugitive black "nigger jim" slave needing and aiding then
respecting one another as humans beyond their skin colors which there in that time was a break through in the horrors of the institute of
slavery of another race for all the reasons that were given about the
human beings kept in bondage being lesser and so on---to change the
name and the shame that Huck soon realize that was attached to it
which he had never thought on before loses the meaning in the end.
I speak from experience in a way-being born in segregation in South
and mostly living in rural area I never actually saw blacks made to
step off the curb for a white child even to pass or to step to the
back of the bus and stand even with empty seats open in front---I saw it daily at times yet I did not see it---I could see but I was blind
until I had an awakening on personal level and then I saw thankfully I was still small child and it was a lesson learned which I have never
forgotten...Don't change literature or ballads-TEACH THEM for what they are and what they stand for-not what you think they should have been and should have stood for---That is another BIG LIE of society
for me Be Proud the black voices rose to tell the stories in song and to speak of freedom from oppression in song and to let everyone know
the Truths in song...The master had died mysteriously in the field
and instead of a black man hanging it was laid on the back of the
blue tail fly---and the slaves rejoice the whole happening has been
to their benefit for a change---