Roosevelt's Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on FDR

Music historian Charles Wolfe has noted that listening to blues music is a sure way to understand the thought, spirit, and history of the very segment of the Negro community that historians have rendered inarticulate through their neglect. This volume helps us to comprehend both the import of Wolfe's statement and an unprecedented phenomenon that occurred in the 1930s. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president of the United States, thousands of black Americans, traditionally Republican, deserted the party of Lincoln and became Democrats.In Roosevelt's Blues Guido van Rijn documents more than a hundred blues and gospel lyrics that contain direct political comment about FDR. Altogether they convey the thought, spirit, and history of the African-American population during the Roosevelt era. Blacks had decidedly become Democrats. He also has identified some 300 blues and gospel songs recorded from 1902 to 1945 with direct political references. In many of these the lyrics, fully quoted here, cite the mistreatment of blacks and refer to the Red Cross Store, which distributed relief supplies during the 1927 flood of the Mississippi. Others mention Roosevelt's alphabet agencies -- CWA, RFC, PWA, CCC, and WPA -- and broach various topics of the World War II era: FDR's strong leadership, Hitler, Stalin, rationing, and the role of blacks in the armed forces.Included in the book are recorded sermons by Rev. J. M. Gates and lyrics to songs recorded by such notable musicians as Huddie Leadbelly Ledbetter, Big Bill Broonzy, Champion Jack Dupree, Sonny Boy Williamson, Josh White, the Mississippi Sheiks, and many others. Using these sources, which have been neglected by historians, van Rijn documents Roosevelt's vast popularity among blacks.