Black Hoboes and Their Songs

[Including a CD of 25 original recordings!]

Gene Tomko & Paul Garon     2006     296p     5 x 8

In this exciting new book, Paul Garon tells the story of African American migratory workers and the songs they sang: at work, in boxcars and hobo jungles, in jail, in country roadhouses and urban nightspots. Focused on the years 1910-1940, Garon’s narrative and the powerful lyrics of 100-plus songs relate in detail the Black hobo experience with racism and other injustice as well as with jobs as varied as turpentining, track-laying, circus work, lumber, agriculture and mining. Here, too, are fascinating digressions on Black Wobblies, Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union organizers, and the hobohemian counterculture. This study comes with a 25-track CD.

$5-15

Other works involving hoboes, music, race, the IWW, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s