ALCStudies Journal

An excerpt read from Woody Guthrie’s book Bound for Glory; as relevant now as when he published it in 1943.

This is included in an event we planned to celebrate Guthrie’s music, life and writings.

— DA

P.S. Please see the following written text for the excerpt.

While we walked away, holding our faces to the slight breath of air that was moving across the yards, he asked , ‘Say your name was?’

I said, ‘Woody.’

‘Mine’s Brown. Glad ta meet you, Woody. You know I’e run onto this skin color before.’ He walked long the cinders.

‘Skin trouble. That’s a damn good name for it. ‘ I walked along beside him.

‘Hard to cure it after it gets started, too. I was born and raised in a country that’s got all kinds of diseases, and this skin trouble is the worst on of the lot,’ he told me.

‘Bad,’ I answered him.

‘I got sick and tired of that kind of stuff when I was just a kid growing up at home. You know. God, I had hell with some of my folks about things like that. But, seems like, little at a time, I’d sort of convince them, you know; lots of folks I never could convince. They’re kind of like the old bellyache fellow, they cause a lot of trouble to a hundred people. and then to a thousand people, all on account of just some silly, crazy notion. Like you can help what color you are. Goddamit all. Why do’t they spend that same amount of time and trouble doing something good…?

— Woody Guthrie, Bound for Glory pg. 221