Worried Man Blues: For Educators

This song is useful for introducing a lesson on the experiences of freedmen and African Americans generally in the South during and after Reconstruction.

Although the version that the students heard was recorded in 1930 and sung by the Carter Family, whose members were white, this is a late 19th century folk song that details an experience strikingly similar to those experienced by many African American in the South under the Black Codes after the Civil War. If Black Codes is not already a vocabulary term that students know, provide a definition and multiple examples of the types of restrictions the codes entailed, as well as the frequent recategorization of many petty crimes as felonies. You may want to review briefly the various Reconstruction plans put forth by Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, as well as the Radical Republicans in Congress, and then ask whether students think that the Black Codes arose during the implementation of Johnson’s plan or Congress’ plan. They should recognize that the leniency of Johnson’s plan allowed white supremacist governments to remain in power and that those governments implemented the Black Codes as a way to retain white supremacy in the absence of slavery, but you may need to prompt them to ensure that they see this connection. Additionally, you might ask students why they think that the Black Codes were not eliminated after Congress implemented its Reconstruction plan. This is an opportunity to address the limitations of the congressional plan and the reasons that Reconstruction ended in the early 1870s, during Grant’s presidency.

After providing that context, you can elaborate on the vagrancy laws that are alluded to in the lyrics, and that were central to the Black Codes in southern states. The codes and these laws typically required that African Americans must be able to supply proof of lawful employment, as defined by the Black Codes, on demand. Lawful employment usually meant working as a contract laborer, and in some states, African Americans were not allowed to enter certain occupations. Failure to show proof of lawful employment resulted in arrest under a state’s vagrancy laws. The fines levied for vagrancy offenses were often beyond the means of African Americans arrested under those laws, and the inability to pay meant a sentence of hard labor under the convict leasing system. Sentences were a minimum of three months but frequently stretched over many years, well beyond what is proportional for such an offense. After explaining the convict leasing system, you might ask students to consider the extent to which it was similar to and different from the institution of slavery in terms of its role in the economies of southern states.