Woody Guthrie found N.C. union mighty white

“[In December 1947] he was paid a hundred dollars to sing for striking tobacco workers in [Winston-Salem]. He quickly ran into trouble, though, when he wrote a picket line song that included the verse:

All colors of hands gonna work together
All colors of eyes gonna laugh and shine
All colors of feet gonna dance together
When I bring my CIO to Caroline, Caroline

“The problem was, of course, that the [Food, Tobacco, and Allied Workers] union was segregated. The organizers insisted he cut the verse. ‘I [said] that if the line got the blue pencil, me and my guitar hit the road for home,’ he reported in the Daily Worker. But the union held firm, and the white workers boycotted the meeting… ‘It cut me to my bones to have to play and sing for those Negroes with no other colors mixing in.’ ”

— From “Woody Guthrie: A Life” (1980) by Joe Klein

One thought on “Woody Guthrie found N.C. union mighty white”

  1. Another song from Guthrie’s unhappy time in Winston-Salem:

    Aginst Th’ Law

    It’s against the law to walk, and against the law to talk
    Against the law to loaf, against the law to work
    Against the law to read, against the law to write
    Against the law to be a black, a brown, or white

    Everything’s against the law
    I’m a low-pay daddy singing the high-price blues

    It’s against the law to eat, against the law to drink
    Against the law to worry, against the law to think
    Against the law to marry or try to settle down
    Against the law to ramble like a bum from town to town

    Everything’s against the law
    I’m a low-pay daddy singing the high-price blues

    It’s against the law to come, against the law to go
    Against the law to ride, against the law to roll
    Against the law to hug and against the law to kiss
    Against the law to shoot, against the law to miss

    Everything’s against the law
    I’m a low-pay daddy singing the high-price blues

    It’s against the law to gamble, against the law to roam
    Against the law to organize or try to build a home
    Against the law to sing, it’s against the law to dance
    Against the law to tell you all the trouble on my hands

    Everything in Winston-Salem is against the law
    I’m a low-pay daddy singing the high-price blues

    Woody Guthrie never recorded “Aginst Th’ Law,” but Billy Bragg and Wilco wrote music to it and included it among other “lost” Guthrie songs on “Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2” (2000). It’s available as a ring tone, in case you’re looking for the perfect gift for someone at the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce.

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