Bring Judgment Day

Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies

Sheila Curran Bernard (University at Albany, State University of New York)

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Cambridge University Press
11 July 2024

Music; History of the Americas

Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889–1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous – as was, according to legend, the temper that landed him in two of the South's most brutal prisons, while his immense talent twice won him pardons. But, as this deeply researched book shows, these stories were shaped by the white folklorists who 'discovered' Lead Belly and, along with reporters, recording executives, and radio and film producers, introduced him to audiences beyond the South. Through a revelatory examination of arrest, trial, and prison records; sharecropping reports; oral histories; newspaper articles; and more, author Sheila Curran Bernard replaces myth with fact, offering a stunning indictment of systemic racism in the Jim Crow era of the United States and the power of narrative to erase and distort the past.

By: Sheila Curran Bernard (University at Albany State University of New York)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781009098120
ISBN 10: 1009098128
Pages: 253
Publication Date: 11 July 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction; 1. Encounter at Angola; 2. Two men from Texas; 3. On the road; 4. 1915: The State of Texas v. Huddie Ledbetter; 5. Frayed nerves; 6. 1918: The State of Texas v. Walter Boyd; 7. Northern debut; 8. Contracts; 9. 1930: The State of Louisiana v. Huddie Ledbetter; 10. The end of the road; Epilogue.

Sheila Curran Bernard is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, author, and educator. The recipient of an NEH Public Scholars award, Bernard is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Reviews for Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies

'Sheila Curran Bernard rescues the legendary 'Lead Belly' from a swirl of fabrication and racist presumption, and simultaneously illuminates the systemized oppression that cruelly stalked Black artists and ensured, for a century after the ostensible end of slavery, that bitter chords of racial injustice would remain as central to the American chorus as any melodies of freedom.' Douglas A. Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another Name, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 'Sheila Curran Bernard's thoroughly researched book is necessary for recuperating and rescuing the truth of Huddie Ledbetter from racist myths and stereotypes, but also for recasting deeply held myths and assumptions about white paternalism and the origins of American folk music.' Mary Ellen Curtin, author of Black Prisoners and Their World, Alabama, 1865–1900 '… A beautiful tribute to Lead Belly's legacy. This book will forever change the way we think about one of America's most iconic musical legends and one of its most misunderstood.' Talitha L. LeFlouria, author of Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South 'Sheila Curran Bernard is the first to give us a biographical book on Huddie Ledbetter as he really was: a complicated man tactically negotiating a complex, racist, and overwhelmingly unforgiving world.' Gustavus Stadler, author of Woody Guthrie: An Intimate Life