Cover Story

October 06, 2005

 

It was 1910 in Okemah, Oklahoma, when Deputy Sheriff George Loney went to a poor farm outside of town to arrest a black man named Nelson for stealing a sheep.

Nelson's 13 year old son thought he saw the deputy go for his gun and  pulled out a rifle and shot Loney in the leg and the deputy bled to death in the yard.

A posse was organized and the entire Nelson family was arrested. They were brought to Okemah, where the husband was placed in one cell and the wife, the son and the nursing infant in another.  A mob burst into the jail and dragged Laura Nelson, her son and her baby to a bridge over the Canadian River, where they were lynched.

A photo of the lynching was later reprinted and sold as a post card.  The story always haunted Woody Guthrie and many years later, he wrote this song . . .

Don’t Kill My Baby

and My Son

As I walked down that old dark town

in the town where I was born . . .

I heard the saddest, lonesome moan

I ever heard before.

My hair it trembled at the roots

Cold chills run down my spine

As I drew near that old jailhouse

I heard this deathly cry.

Chorus:

Don't kill my baby and my son

Don't kill my baby and my son

You can stretch my neck on that

old river bridge

but don't kill my baby and my son.

Now I've heard the cries of a panther

Now I've heard the coyotes yell

But the long lonesome cry shook the

whole wide world

it come from the cell of the jail.

Yes, I've heard the screech owls screeching

and the hoot owls hoot in the night

but the graveyard itself is happy compared

to the sound from the jailhouse that night.

Chorus:

Don't kill my baby and my son

Don't kill my baby and my son

You can stretch my neck on that

old river bridge

but don't kill my baby and my son.

Then I saw a picture on a postcard

it shows the Canadian River bridge.

Three bodies hanging to swing

in the wind

A mother and two sons they'd lynched.       

There's a wild wind blows down the river

There's a wild wind blows through

the trees

There's a wild wind that blows 'round this whole, wide world

And here's what the wild winds sing:

Chorus:

Don't kill my baby and my son

Don't kill my baby and my son

You can stretch my neck on that

old river bridge

but don't kill my baby and my son.

Don't kill my baby and my son...!

Word and music by: Woody Guthrie - Recorded by Joel Rafael

by lyle e davis

It’s strange how this world works.

Back on May 16th, 2002, The Paper ran a cover story that dealt with lynchings, one of the darker sides of this nation’s history.

We caught hell from a number of quarters for having put photos of people who had been hanged on the cover.  We, however, felt it was an important story to tell and felt that the dramatic impact of the cover photos would garner the attention that would naturally lead the reader into the story line and thus, it was hoped, learn from the story.  We managed to weather the storm of complaints and moved on to other stories.

Then, several months after the original article appeared, we received a phone call from Joel Rafael, a songwriter, singer, bandleader, artist, a man of many talents.  It seems that a friend had seen our issue and gave a copy to Joel.  Joel called us and said . . . “you have a lady that has been hanged in your cover story on lynchings.  Your caption says. . . ‘unidentified woman lynched at an undidentified location. . .’  I know that woman and know where she was lynched!”

Intrigued, our ears perked up.

As the song by Woody Guthrie describes, the woman was Laura Nelson, the mother of a 13 year old boy who, it is said, was not quite right mentally.  Whether he was mentally retarded, slow, or mentally ill, we don’t know.  We do know that his actions caused a mob to hang him, his mom, and, the song suggests, a younger sibling (other accounts suggest that the infant was not hanged but left on the river bank to die). 

As luck would have it, we journeyed to Okemah, Oklahoma, in 2002.  Our Associate Publisher, Evelyn Madison, grew up in Oklahoma City and Okemah is only about 70 miles east of there; we visited the town where all this took place . . . got to know a lot more about Woody Guthrie . . . about his home town (for he was born and grew up in Okemah) . . . about Joel Rafael, the Woody Guthrie Festival . . . and some nice folks in a very old, very small town.

Okemah is not much of a town to look at . . . not terribly sophisticated.  A lot of very, very old buildings . . . population of, maybe, 3500.

But it is also a town that takes pride in its hometown son, Woody Guthrie . . . and a town that is very hospitable . . . a town that puts on a Woody Guthrie Festival that is a tremendous success, professionally produced, promoted, and attended by a lot of seasoned folk singers . . . and artists who love Woody Guthrie and his music.

Woody Guthrie was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century. Coming out of tiny Okemah, Oklahoma, Guthrie had firsthand knowledge of the dustbowl diaspora chronicled in John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath. By the time he gained recognition in the '40s, Guthrie had written hundreds of songs, many of which remain folk standards to this day. Probably his best known songs, at least to the general public, are, “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You,” and his masterpiece, “This Land is Your Land.”

In the late '40s and early '50s, versions of his songs became hits for such artists as The Weavers. By then, Guthrie himself was in physical decline, suffering from Huntington's Chorea, a hereditary neurological disorder. But during his long illness, Guthrie's influence spread to the next generation, fostering the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s. Not only is Bob Dylan unimaginable without him, but large segments of popular music are permanently affected by his concerns as a songwriter and his approach to the form.

Joel Rafael and artists like him have formed an almost cult like following of Woody Guthrie and his music.

The work is beautifully represented on a CD album, “Woodeye,” Songs of Woody Guthrie by the Joel Rafael Band. 

Rafael is almost a walking encyclopedia on Woody Guthrie and his life.  Some of his stories:

Item:  Guthrie’s mother suffered from Huntington’s Chorea, the same disease that eventually killed Woody.  At that time, however, doctors didn’t know what the malady was  so they put Mrs. Guthrie in an insane asylum in Norman, Oklahoma.  After Mrs. Guthrie passed away, the location of her grave was lost for years.    Recently, however, a woman came forward who knew where Mrs. Guthrie was buried.  “After 72 years the death certificate and grave site have been found. Nora Belle Guthrie passed away at age 44 of chronic myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) on June 13, 1930. She was buried on June 21, 1930 in the IOOF cemetery.

The location is section BLK5bo, Grave 73. The grave is unmarked (at this time).”

Item:  There is a grave marker for Woodie Guthrie at the Okemah cemetery.  But Woody isn’t there.  He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at Coney Island, in New York state, where he lived prior to his death.

Item:  Woody Guthrie’s dad was a cowboy, a speculator, a politician, and an undersheriff at Okemah and was part of the mob that took Laura Nelson out of the jail and lynched her.  This is one reason that the story haunted him for so many years, and what compelled him to write the song.

Item:  Woody had this to say about his tiny hometown of Okemah:

"Okemah was one of the singingest, square dancingest, drinkingest, yellingest, preachingest, walkingest, talkingest, laughingest, cryingest, shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest, gamblingest, gun, club and razor carryingest of our ranch towns and farm towns, because it blossomed out into one of our first Oil Boom Towns."

There are literally hundreds of stories about Woody Guthrie, and hundreds of stories that Woody Guthrie told in song.

Joel Rafael knows most of them.  The fact that he knew the song about Laura Nelson, and the sheer happenstance that a friend of his would stumble across a several months old edition of The Paper, and show it to Rafael . . . and Rafael would call us . . . identifying the heretofore unknown woman (to us, at least) and the location of her lynching . . . the fact that we just happened to be going to Oklahoma City . . . only 70 miles away from Okemah . . . well, as we said earlier, it’s a strange world we live in sometimes.

But interesting.  And amazing.

Those of you who have an interest in Woody Guthrie . . . and/or who want to follow this story more closely . . . can contact Joel Rafael at www.joelrafael.com.  His CD is $16.98 and can be ordered there.  It’s well worth the money and will give you hours of enjoyment.

Above, Joel Rafael, in concert, below, Joel and his band, in concert