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Doll head. Bobo, MS |
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| The head from a child's doll rests between rows of cotton in a field adjacent to a burned-out sharecropper shack in Bobo, MS, a silent symbol of the Delta's haunted past. Although few Mississippi blues artists have ever recorded music that openly protested the harsh living conditions of blacks in the South, a notable exception is J.B. Lenoir from Monticello, MS (1929-1967) . In his recording "Born Dead," Lenoir sings:" Why was I born in Mississippi/Where it's so hard to get ahead?/ Every black child born in Mississippi/ You know that poor child was born dead/When he came into the world/The doctor spanked him the black baby cried/Everybody thought he had life/That's when the black baby died/He will never speak his language/The poor baby he will never speak his mind/The poor child will never know his mind/Why in the world is he so poor?" | ||||||||||