John Henry: Unmasking America’s Real First Black Superhero

FAIN: TD-300745-24

Center for Independent Documentary, Inc. (Newton, MA 02458-1341)
Randall Mark MacLowry (Project Director: January 2024 to present)

Development of a ninety-minute documentary examining the evolution of John Henry as an African American hero in folklore and song.

Common folk songs and folklore about John Henry recount the story of an African American laborer in the late 19th century who raced against a steam engine to determine whether man or machine could drill faster through a mountain to create a railroad tunnel. John Henry wins, but his heart gives out and dies from the effort—for some, becoming both martyr and hero. Presenting and exploring a century and a half of evolving John Henry representations, JOHN HENRY also reveals important and contemporarily significant humanities themes—folklore and vernacular music as a means of self-expression for marginalized communities; misrepresentation, appropriation and commodification of Black culture as American culture; afterlife of slavery in American labor and legal systems; racial capitalism and the making of the United States; and constructions of gender in the Black community and the American imagination—making the case for the centrality of Black folk culture in American culture.