October 25, 2023 • 37 mins
Who does coaching work least well for? Turns out it’s the exact people who could benefit most from it, according to the industry. Dr. Sherman James and Dr. Arline Geronimus discuss the downsides of positive thinking, bootstrapping, and mindset culture. For some people, striving has negative impacts on health and happiness.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, Dream listeners, if you like this podcast, you're gonna
love the book.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
I wrote a book.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's called Selling the Dream and it's coming out March twelfth,
twenty twenty four, on Atria. It's about all of your
favorite characters from MLMs and some that you've never even
heard of. I hope check it out previously on the Dream.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
Let me say it through one person I think I
call her Diane. Sits at the back of the thing
with me. Used to work at Dell, got laid off twice,
two or three times, maybe early fifties. And I get
to know her. She's, you know, looking for a job,
trying to figure it out, and totally normal like everyone
else they talk to. And then I go back the
next week and she looks a little bit more dressed
up and she's wearing a blazer mm hmm. And instead
(01:06):
of sitting down next to me, she walks to the
front of the room and she's this week's guest speaker,
and she introduces herself as a life coach and expert
motivational guru. And then all of a sudden, she's at
the front of the room. It's like she put on a
blazer and all of a sudden, she's an expert.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Have you ever heard the Legend of John Henry? Before
I did the interview you're about to hear. The best
recollection I had of the story came from a Disney
short I saw like twenty years ago. In that cartoon
version for kids. It's a story about the ultimate can
do man, a man with supernatural grit and determination. His
story was first shared as a folk tale among African
(01:50):
Americans in the late eighteen hundreds, and then it became
a song performed by black folks and then white folk
singers about the magnificence of the steel driving man that's
the human precursor to a jackhammer or pneumatic drill. For
over a century, it's been upheld as a story emblematic
of the America. Can dream work hard enough and you
(02:12):
shall overcome. Have the right mindset and the rest will
fall into place. Except that's not what happens in the
end of the Legend of John Henry, not even close.
John Henry's life doesn't get better. No, the ending of
the Legend of John Henry is totally perplexing, so much
so that scholars have argued about its meaning for almost
(02:33):
one hundred years. One of those scholars, a retired Southern
Black professor, doctor Sherman James, use the story to come
up with a hypothesis about why putting your mind to
something and trying your very very hardest isn't necessarily a
good thing for any of us, any of us, not
just the person driving the deal. Here's how doctor Sherman
(02:53):
James tells the story of John Henry.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
According to this legend, sometime in the early eighteen seventies,
John Henry, and uneducated African American, was working as part
of a a work gang, probably a group of convict laborers.
And so one day John Henry, who was computed to
be you know, the best steel driver the world I'd
(03:21):
ever known, was challenged by his work boss to compete
against a newly invented machine, mechanical steam drill. And he
rose to the challenge, arguing that a man was nothing
but a man, but a man was certainly better than
a machine. And so this epic battle man and against
machine ensued, and after a long, long confrontation with the machine,
(03:46):
John Henry won, but he dropped dead after his victory
from complete mental and physical exhaustion.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And what was that legend meant to teach us at
that or when it was created.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yeah, that's that's a great question. It's probably debatable as
to what the legend actually signifies. The earliest work on
the meaning of the legend was by an anthropologist by
the name of Guy Johnson, who actually went to the
area where this legendary contests suppose I have taken place,
(04:21):
near Talcott, West Virginia, And so he interviewed a number
of black folks and he came away with the idea
that John Henry may not have actually been a real person,
but that really didn't matter. Here's what he wrote in
his book John Henry, Tracking Down a Negro Legend, first
(04:45):
published in nineteen twenty nine. The question of whether the
John Henry legend rests on a factual basis is, after all,
not of much significance. No matter which way it is answered,
there remains the fact that the legend itself is a reality,
a living, functioning theme in the folk life of.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
The Negro.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Legend had this large meaning in the lives of working
class African Americans, who felt that it sort of signified
the triumph of the spirit of black people. So it
was standing up to power and refusing to back down
(05:31):
and winning even at a very high cost. Now, in
two thousand and six, historian Scott Nelson wrote this really
interesting book, Still Driving Man, The Untold Story of John Henry,
and it's a wonderful piece of historical research. Scott Nelson concluded,
(05:53):
after extensive archival research that John Henry was probably a
real person and not necessarily a freed slave. Maybe he
was born in New Jersey and he worked his way
south shortly after the Civil War looking for job opportunities,
and he got caught up in the black Codes. He
(06:16):
but actually was accused of petty larceny and was tried
and convicted and thrown into into jail a very long
prison term, and wanda working as part of a work
gang on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and then was
exposed to you know, all of the toxic dusts that
(06:39):
men who carved out tunnels and mountains were exposed to,
and and he probably died of you know, what we
might call coal miners disease. So that since then he
was a you know, the legendary John Henry was a
was a victim of sort of the first the first
wave of mass incarceration of black people. So Scott Nelson
(07:01):
concluded that the meaning of the story for for everyday
black folks, it was like a cautionary tail, don't let
this happen to you. Run away as fast as you can,
don't get caught up in this system. So we have these,
I'm going to say, competing versions of what the what
(07:23):
the legend means for For me, I sort of lean
more toward the former, because I think it really taps more,
It taps more, more more deeply, more authentically into the
into the spirit you know, of of Black Americans, to
(07:45):
confront adversity, to not give up on their dreams to succeed,
you know, against the odds. So it's more of a
of a fight, if you will, kind of response than
a flight kind of response. And then, of course I
think that there are both rewards and costs associated with
(08:10):
engaging in that kind of fight response.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So with the story in the back of his mind,
doctor James headed off to college and became a professor
of epidemiology at UNC Chapel Hill. He studied diseases and
their causes, and he decided to look at the problem
of high blood pressure in black men in eastern North Carolina.
He said he chose this population because they were unlikely
to regularly go to the doctor and very likely to
(08:37):
die of heart attack and stroke, the end result of
a life with high blood pressure or hypertension.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
And so a physician colleague of mine gave me the
names of six of his blackmail patients whom I could interview.
So I drove about fifty five miles north of Chaprio
to a farm in Aliments County to speak to a
man by the name of mister John Martin. And he
(09:04):
was retired. He was seventy one years of age at
the time. He was waiting for me in his back.
It was mid July, very hot, so I welcomed me warmly,
inviting me to sit next to him and chair on
the big tree, and we just started talking and he
began to tell me his life story. It was a
phenomenal story, going into a sharecropper family in nineteen oh seven.
(09:29):
His father was, of course uneducated and could never get
out of debt because the sharecropper system was designed to
keep particularly black sharecroppers perpetually in debt. And so when
John Martin sid John Martin was oh probably an early lesson,
and he saw, you know how his father just fretted
(09:50):
and hardy worked and he could just never get ahead.
He vowed that that would not be his fate under
new circumstances, would he he be caught up in that
kind of explotative system. So some years later, when he
became a young man, got married, and he was a
cropper himself, because he had the drop out of school
(10:11):
in the second grade in order to help out on
the farm. His wife's brother was a was a landowner,
an independent landowner, and his wife also came from a
family that owned their own land. And so both of them,
his wife and his brother in law, prevailed upon him
to take the risk and go to the bank and
(10:34):
get alone and buy his own property. So, with some
considerable reluctance, he did, and he got a mortgage, a
forty year mortgage to purchase seventy five acres of fertile
North Carolina farmland. And he always had this sort of
(10:55):
deep sense of vulnerability to you know, powerful forces, because
because he saw what had happened to his his father,
And by working literally night and day for you know,
six days a week, he with a lot of help
from his wife, managed to pay it off in five years,
(11:17):
a huge accomplishment. And so then he turned to me
and he said, I think that's the reason why my
legs a whole lot of whack. I pushed myself too
hard in the fields. Now I knew that he had
high blood pressure, and he had two keynes that were
(11:38):
leaning against the chair in which he was sitting. So
he was suffering from a very severe case of ostio arthritis.
And in the course of telling me about his life story,
he also told me that in his mid fifties or so,
he had to go to the hospital and have forty
percent of his stomach removed because he had a very
(12:00):
serious case of peptic ulcers.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yeah, So he had these three major diseases that had
a huge stress.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Opponent stress component, meaning these diseases that can be caused
or triggered by stress.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah, the stress plays a role. So he'd been talking
for maybe a couple of hours, and his wife came
to the in to the door and she uh said,
John Henry, it's time for lunch and uh and and
bring your guests with you. So I looked at him
and I said, your name is John Henry, And he said, yeah,
(12:36):
John Henry Martin, and I thought, just like the legendary
John Henry, went up against the machine, and in the
case of John y Ney Martin, the machine was the sharecropper.
Speaker 6 (12:44):
System, which he beat.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
He won his struggle against the machine, the economic machine
that was the sharecropper system, but he paid a price.
I began to think, well, maybe there's something here, you know,
maybe there's something here because his story reminded me. Johnny
(13:14):
Martin's story reminded me a lot of the story of
my parents, the story of my grandparents. My grandfathers on
both my mother's side and my father's side were share robbers.
So I could identify with what John Hind Martin was
telling me, and I thought, his story is.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
Not just his story, this is really the story of
black people, black people in America having to go up
against these very powerful political and economic forces, these systems,
these institutions that are in place to keep black people
(13:57):
subjugated and forcing them to have to work extremely hard
in order to make ends meet and in order to
try to move ahead.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
So that really led them for the John Henderson hypothesis
that maybe that's the explanation of why we see so
much high blood pressure and strokes and heart attacks that
affect African Americans, particularly working class African Americans, fairly early
in adult life. And then, of course the challenge became,
(14:29):
how do I test this? And so I came up
with twelve questions that constitute the John Hendrism Scale for
active coping or high effort coping. And I can give you,
(14:54):
if you wish, a couple of sample questions. Yes, so's
the first question. When things don't go the way I
want them to, that just makes me work even harder.
Now the response options are strongly agree, some would agree,
don't know, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. So here's the second question.
(15:17):
Once I make up my mind to do something, I
stay with it until the job is completely done. So
you know, the remaining questions continue to work this theme
of tenacity, persistence, not giving up. So that's the John
Henderson Scale.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And guess what his hunch was right? He found a
very strong correlation between scoring high on the John Henryism
scale and having hypertension and all of its attendant problems
like stroke and heart attack. The more these men strived
for excellence, the sicker they became, and the shorter they lived,
and contrary to what doctor James and his colleagues speculated,
(15:59):
the link was there even for those who had already
moved up the socioeconomic louder, who had achieved success in
stability and were aiming to achieve even more. As we
all do.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
This is this was very surprising to us. I can't
emphasize that enough. So this is the late nineteen eighties
when at the time there had been very little epidemiological
research on the health of middle class black people, and
we sort of expected to see that, oh, they will
be doing so much better than they're working class counterparts. Right,
(16:31):
we're talking about the you know, post civil rights movement.
You know, you know, folks who came of age in
the nineteen sixties, who benefited from the nineteen sixty four
Civil Rights Act, nineteen sixty five, the civil rights legislation,
and now they were moving into these white spaces from
which you know, black folks had for the most part
(16:53):
been excluded. There may be a lot of physiological wear
and tear that attends, you know, growing up our gangs,
taking on these intrinsic shape shifting institutional constraints against upward
social mobility.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
That's wild I mean, I understand it, I understand.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
It, but yeah, I mean obviously very disturbing, right, a
very disturbing finding. So what the data are telling us?
What these data are telling us? And again I want
to emphasize that this is not just one study, but
there are multiple studies that have shown this effect. What
(17:40):
this is telling us is that successful upward mobility in
America for people of color, not just Black Americans, but
for people of color comes with the price. Just like
we saw in the story of John Henry Martin, he
achieved there was upward social mobility. He became a landowner,
(18:04):
he became an independent farmer. He had some wealth, but
he paid a price.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I kept wondering how doctor James's findings extended to women.
At the end of one popular version of the John
Henry Song, the story goes on to talk about his widow,
Polly Anne, who just picked up John Henry's hammer and
went right on driving steel in his place. So I
spoke to a professor at the University of Michigan's School
of Public Health, doctor Arlene Geronimus.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
My area of study is health inequity.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Okay, tell me more about that. I think that's something
we all want to know a lot about right now.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Which is interesting to me because thirty years ago people
weren't that interested.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
But doctor Geronymus began her research into health inequity back
in the seventies in a school for pregnant teen moms.
She had a hunch about teen pregnancy and the way
we thought about it that it wasn't the very worst
thing to ever happen to someone, and it wasn't nearly
as negatively impactful on people's lives as other larger forces
in society. It wasn't the root of all evil. But
(19:14):
in observing the poorer moms or the moms of color,
she did notice that they often had health problems that
usually don't appear until much later in life, problems that
had nothing to do with being pregnant. What was going on?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Well, I came to this theory I now pursued for
all these decades, which I called weathering, which was the
idea that if you're part of a denigrated group, you're
both exposed to more assaults that wear down your health
at earlier ages, and so that's weathering, as in a
(19:51):
rock being you know, weathered by wind and rain over centuries,
but you're also in this you know, this is what
I had seen initially in the School for Pregnant Moms.
You're also weathering in the sense that you're having to
and this actually relates a lot to some of the
concepts in Sherman James's work, having to expend so much
(20:17):
effort and coping with all the things you're exposed to
because you're still trying to withstand the storm. You're trying
to survive it. You're trying to even overcome it or
help overcome it for the next generation. If we're talking
about racism and poverty that keeps you chronically stressed even
while you're sleeping. It's not something you can just say,
(20:39):
let me meditate, or let me try to reframe the situation,
let me smile and put on my high heels and
pretty dress. Feel positive. These are things that are happening
day in and day out, and they're they're happening to you,
and they're happening as you, as I said, work very
positively and assertively and proactively to survive them, withstand them.
(21:05):
And I've come to believe, you know, some of them
is just objective things in your environment. You know, meditating
isn't going to help you deal with environmental toxicity. Meditating
isn't going to help you deal with the fact in
order to feed your children. Given that you know the
value of real wages, which was never very high in
(21:26):
the lower rungs, has gotten even less. Means you have
to do two or three jobs, or take night shift
jobs that impen on your sleep, or that you don't
have a car, so you're relying on really bad public
transportation to try and get to your various jobs. You're
(21:46):
also juggling how do you get to your kids to school?
How do you have them taking care of when they're home.
At the same time, you don't have any control over
the hours you work, So there's just this endless coping
that is kind of psycho I might call it psychosocial.
And what I've come to understand and what I think
(22:06):
goes beyond a lot of how people think about stress.
Besides it, it's not just this individual thing you can
manage or control. Is that a very big part of
what sets off all those stress reactions in your body?
The cort is all and all of that is that
(22:27):
we all as human beings, need to have a sense
of how safe we are in any particular situation, and
safe can mean literally life or death safe, or it
can mean are we somewhere where we can be authentic,
where we will be treated fairly. So it can mean
things short of that life or death, or could mean
(22:50):
you know, the interception of them, such as if you're
a black person stopped by a police officer, that's both
something that you worry is unsafe and it could be
life threatening also, So we set off these stress reactions
that people kind of vernacul really know is fight or flight.
(23:11):
But if you think about what happens when you set
them off, you start to see how your your health
wears down early along the very things that cause the
health and equities by race and class in the United States.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I think when you were talking about the like you know,
having so many jobs and not sleeping and taking public
transportation and all of that, I feel like for a
large part of our society in America anyway, those are
the actually the answers, those are the solves, right, Like
get another work harder if you don't have a car,
(23:59):
take the bus. It's like, just change your attitude, you know,
be more positive, like be optimistic and have a better mindset.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
What I've seen is in the very same populations who
weather I've never seen more resilient people who keep going
on in the face of adversity, and who can be
very optimistic, and who have all these sayings and support
from you know, the people there in networks with their
loved ones about you know, take one foot forward or
(24:31):
you know, keep on keeping on. But given that I've
seen how optimistic and what a good attitude by you know,
by some measures people in these communities have, and they
still get so sick, it certainly doesn't seem to me
that that's much good evidence that that being optimistic or
(24:55):
you know, having grit, or being resilient or making the
best of bad situations is what's going to make you healthy.
It certainly hasn't worked in these circumstances. You know, you'd
have people would have to they'd have to accept how
inequitably structured our world is, and that they didn't really
earn their right to have vacations and time off for
(25:19):
yoga and me time. We're going to get your me
time when you're raising kids and working night shifts and
then working another shift in the day, and then trying
to figure out do you pay your electricity bill or not.
Do you fight with your landlord that he hasn't fixed
the heater in your building? And you have to make
(25:39):
these decisions all the time, And then you're also being
told you don't work hard, you don't have future orientation,
you're not a good person, you had your children too young,
which just proves you aren't a good person. If you
just really you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, you
(26:00):
get all the same things we got. Those are stressful
things to work against.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Two.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I wish I could say that these findings shocked me,
but instead they affirmed a feeling I've been having about
the self improvement woo woo coachy world. There's just something
really privileged and tone deaf about the idea of picking
yourself up by your bootstraps, an idea we've heaped upon
people of color in this country, I think, to absolve
white people of having to do any hard work to
(26:38):
help their fellow man. An idea that we've gifted white people,
convincing us we've earned everything we have, An idea designed
to keep those in power and power while blaming people
we oppress for their powerlessness. The mindset stuff from Napoleon Hill,
the individual responsibility of the unemployed folks in Texas, Ray
(26:59):
Higden's insistence that you just need to defy your negative
feelings to overcome adversity. These are all just distractions from
the larger forces that make it harder for song many
people to rise in this country, things like racism and
sexism and all the isms I'm constantly banging on about.
Despite what these pitchmen might say, you cannot think yourself
(27:20):
out of being the only woman in a business meeting.
Believe me, I've tried. There are people, groups of people
for whom this think and grow rich stuff is just
plainly detrimental, and that it's bad for society on the whole.
When entire enormous communities suffer in an effort to not suffer,
we all suffer. I want to put you in a
room with Tony Robbins while he's like screaming about how
(27:45):
you know this like rugged individualism and you know your
mindset just needs to overcome stuff, And no, it's more complicated.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
It's more complicated. These motivational speakers have figured something out right,
you know, how to speak to the aspirations of people
and how to connect their stick with the American dream.
(28:15):
And and you know, we Americans, you know how mind
is conditioned right to think about our country as a
place where hard work pays off. I mean, we all
of us have internalized to some degree that notion, that aspiration.
(28:37):
They have been sold the American dream. A lot of
us have been sold the American dream. This is where
I want to give them some grace. Let me put
it that way. What they don't know is the kind
of thing that you and I have been talking about.
They don't they really don't know the physiological costs associated
(28:58):
with this not the question for me. The question becomes
what would they say if they knew? How would it
change their their message? How would it change what they
say to people if they knew? But they don't know.
And of course it's a very powerful dream, isn't it.
I mean, I mean, what a wonderful idea the American
(29:19):
dream is. I mean, it's a powerful idea. It attracts,
It has attracted people from all over the world, you know,
in search of opportunities to be freer than you know.
They're able to be free in their in their home
countries too, to realize their potential to to be safe
(29:40):
from harm, to be successful economically, to gain wealth, to
pass something on to the next generation, to make it
easier for the next generation to live their lives, and
have been the case for them. There's nothing wrong with
the dream, but it's a dream. The problem is. The
(30:01):
problem is, and you mentioned this, you know earlier, the
you know, the record of individualism that is such a
a core attribute of American culture, the notion that that America,
that the United States is a meritocracy.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I was just gonna say, yeah, the meritocracy thing.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, yeah, that you deserve what you get and you
get what you deserve, right and and that yeah, in
the end is really up to you. So don't ask me,
you know, to pay higher taxes so that, you know, opportunity,
so the opportunity structure can be expanded, and we can
(30:46):
have some social safety nets that will make your striving
to be successful less costly. And other countries have in
place much stronger social safety nets such that the kind
of other mobility striving, the kind of desire you know,
(31:08):
for self realization, to realize your potential, you know, to
live a life that is meaningful and satisfying, does not
come with it the pursuit of it of that kind
of life does not come with a unnecessary cost to
your health, and that is one of the things that
distinguishes our country from other rich countries in the world.
(31:33):
Right one could argue that that is the most distinguishing
factor that distinguishes the United States of America from our
peer countries elsewhere elsewhere in the world. It's very sobering,
but it's important to know that this phenomenon exists. And
(31:55):
now that we know it, and we have to keep
you know, I have to keep talking about it. We
have to engage in educating the public. Of course, there'll
be the skeptics, you know, but we have to We
have to do our best, certainly to educate policymakers and advocate,
(32:16):
you know, for social and economic policies that made abble
mobility striving, and that's costly.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
We're gonna leave you today with a version of John
Henry sung by the civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who
died this year.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Enjoy John Henry.
Speaker 8 (32:38):
He could hammer, he could whistle, he could sing.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
Went to the.
Speaker 9 (32:44):
Mountain early in the morning just to hear his hammer ring,
Lord Law, just to hear his hammer ring, and just
to hear his hammer ring, Lord Law, just to hear
his hammer ring.
Speaker 8 (32:56):
But John Henry was a little baby sitting on us,
that is me, picked up.
Speaker 9 (33:02):
A hammer and a little piece of steel, said, hamm
will be the death of me, Lord God, yes, hammill
be the death his hand will be the death of me,
Lord Lord, Yes, hamm will.
Speaker 6 (33:13):
Be the death me.
Speaker 8 (33:15):
Well, John Harry's family needed money, said he didn't have
but a dime. If you wait till the rise of
sun goes down, I'll get it from the man in
the mind.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Lord Lord, I'll get it from the man in the mind.
I'll get it from the man in the mind.
Speaker 9 (33:31):
Lord Lord, I'll get it from the man in the mind.
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Well, the captain said to John Henry, Don Harry, what
can you do?
Speaker 6 (33:40):
I canroister check, I can lay a track.
Speaker 9 (33:42):
I can pick and shovel to Lord God, I can
pick and shovel too. I can pick and shovel to
Lord a Lord, I can pick and shovel too.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Well, to Harry said to the captain, a man ain't
nothing but a man.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
But let your Steve tre beat me down.
Speaker 9 (34:01):
Well, I'll die with the hammer in my hand, Lord God,
I'll die with the hammer in my hand. I'll die
with the hammer in my hand. Lord, Lord, I'll die
with the hammer in my hand.
Speaker 8 (34:12):
Well, the captain said to John Henry, I gotta bring
me a steam drill.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Round, hon, bring me a steam drill out on the job.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Gone, wha that steel on down?
Speaker 6 (34:22):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Lord? Go wha that's steel on down? How go hoop
that steel on down?
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And lordig hook that steel on down?
Speaker 8 (34:31):
Well, John Henry said to his shaker, shade, go out.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
Don't you sing? Thrown fifteen pounds from my hips down?
Speaker 9 (34:40):
Listen to the col steel ring, Lord, Lord, Yes, listen
to the cold steel ring.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh, listen to the col steel ring. Lord, O Lord,
I won't you listen to the cold steal ring.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Well.
Speaker 8 (34:50):
The man who invented the steam drill hard, he was
mighty fine.
Speaker 6 (34:56):
John Henry drove this fifteen feet and the steam.
Speaker 9 (34:59):
Drill lonely made nine, Lord, Lord, steam drill lonely made nine. Yes,
the steam drill lonely made nine, Lord Lord, the steam
drill lonely made nine. Well, the captain said to John Henry,
how are you mountain sinking in?
Speaker 6 (35:15):
John Henry said.
Speaker 9 (35:16):
To the captain, on mine, nothing but my hamm a
sucking win Lord, Lord, nothing but my hamm a sucking win. Hey,
nothing but my hamm a sucking win Lord, and Laurie
ain't nothing but my hamm a sucking wind.
Speaker 8 (35:28):
Well, John Henry said to the captain, Look, Bell, know
what I see?
Speaker 6 (35:34):
Hold an choke? You drill done broke?
Speaker 9 (35:37):
And you can't drive steel like me? Lord, Lord, can't
drive steel like me? Oh, you can't drive steel like me. No, No,
you can't drive steal like me.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
Well, John Harry drove into the mountain.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
The Dream has written, hosted, and executive produced by me
Jane Marie. Our producer is Mike Richter, with help from
Nancy Golumbiski and Joy Sandford. Our editor is Peter Clowney.
The Dream is a co production of Little Everywhere in
Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Miss Hammerin and Died Well.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
John Henry had a little woman hand the name of
Polly Anne.
Speaker 6 (36:12):
She walked down the truck, never looked back.
Speaker 9 (36:15):
Pollanne Roste like a man, Lord Pollyann ro Steel like
a man. Polly Anne Roste like a man, Lord, Lord
Polyandro Steel like a man.
Speaker 8 (36:26):
By the people to turn Henry to the White House,
have they buried him in the sun?
Speaker 6 (36:31):
Heavy Loco mode of cameroaring by.
Speaker 9 (36:34):
Says their loves to you, Driving Man, Lord Lord, just
their lives is to you. Driving Man, has there loves
to you, Driving Man? Who he there loveses to You're
driving man, has there lives to you, Driving Man, Lord
lordes their lives to you Driving.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
If you love this show, consider subscribing to pushkin Plus,
offering bonus content, exclusive binge opportunity, and add free listening
(37:10):
across our network for just six ninety nine a month.
Look for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or
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up for our newsletter. To find more Pushkin podcasts, Listen
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your shows
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, Dream listeners, if you like this podcast, you're gonna
love the book.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
I wrote a book.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It's called Selling the Dream and it's coming out March twelfth,
twenty twenty four, on Atria. It's about all of your
favorite characters from MLMs and some that you've never even
heard of. I hope check it out previously on the Dream.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
Let me say it through one person I think I
call her Diane. Sits at the back of the thing
with me. Used to work at Dell, got laid off twice,
two or three times, maybe early fifties. And I get
to know her. She's, you know, looking for a job,
trying to figure it out, and totally normal like everyone
else they talk to. And then I go back the
next week and she looks a little bit more dressed
up and she's wearing a blazer mm hmm. And instead
(01:06):
of sitting down next to me, she walks to the
front of the room and she's this week's guest speaker,
and she introduces herself as a life coach and expert
motivational guru. And then all of a sudden, she's at
the front of the room. It's like she put on a
blazer and all of a sudden, she's an expert.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Have you ever heard the Legend of John Henry? Before
I did the interview you're about to hear. The best
recollection I had of the story came from a Disney
short I saw like twenty years ago. In that cartoon
version for kids. It's a story about the ultimate can
do man, a man with supernatural grit and determination. His
story was first shared as a folk tale among African
(01:50):
Americans in the late eighteen hundreds, and then it became
a song performed by black folks and then white folk
singers about the magnificence of the steel driving man that's
the human precursor to a jackhammer or pneumatic drill. For
over a century, it's been upheld as a story emblematic
of the America. Can dream work hard enough and you
(02:12):
shall overcome. Have the right mindset and the rest will
fall into place. Except that's not what happens in the
end of the Legend of John Henry, not even close.
John Henry's life doesn't get better. No, the ending of
the Legend of John Henry is totally perplexing, so much
so that scholars have argued about its meaning for almost
(02:33):
one hundred years. One of those scholars, a retired Southern
Black professor, doctor Sherman James, use the story to come
up with a hypothesis about why putting your mind to
something and trying your very very hardest isn't necessarily a
good thing for any of us, any of us, not
just the person driving the deal. Here's how doctor Sherman
(02:53):
James tells the story of John Henry.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
According to this legend, sometime in the early eighteen seventies,
John Henry, and uneducated African American, was working as part
of a a work gang, probably a group of convict laborers.
And so one day John Henry, who was computed to
be you know, the best steel driver the world I'd
(03:21):
ever known, was challenged by his work boss to compete
against a newly invented machine, mechanical steam drill. And he
rose to the challenge, arguing that a man was nothing
but a man, but a man was certainly better than
a machine. And so this epic battle man and against
machine ensued, and after a long, long confrontation with the machine,
(03:46):
John Henry won, but he dropped dead after his victory
from complete mental and physical exhaustion.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And what was that legend meant to teach us at
that or when it was created.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Yeah, that's that's a great question. It's probably debatable as
to what the legend actually signifies. The earliest work on
the meaning of the legend was by an anthropologist by
the name of Guy Johnson, who actually went to the
area where this legendary contests suppose I have taken place,
(04:21):
near Talcott, West Virginia, And so he interviewed a number
of black folks and he came away with the idea
that John Henry may not have actually been a real person,
but that really didn't matter. Here's what he wrote in
his book John Henry, Tracking Down a Negro Legend, first
(04:45):
published in nineteen twenty nine. The question of whether the
John Henry legend rests on a factual basis is, after all,
not of much significance. No matter which way it is answered,
there remains the fact that the legend itself is a reality,
a living, functioning theme in the folk life of.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
The Negro.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Legend had this large meaning in the lives of working
class African Americans, who felt that it sort of signified
the triumph of the spirit of black people. So it
was standing up to power and refusing to back down
(05:31):
and winning even at a very high cost. Now, in
two thousand and six, historian Scott Nelson wrote this really
interesting book, Still Driving Man, The Untold Story of John Henry,
and it's a wonderful piece of historical research. Scott Nelson concluded,
(05:53):
after extensive archival research that John Henry was probably a
real person and not necessarily a freed slave. Maybe he
was born in New Jersey and he worked his way
south shortly after the Civil War looking for job opportunities,
and he got caught up in the black Codes. He
(06:16):
but actually was accused of petty larceny and was tried
and convicted and thrown into into jail a very long
prison term, and wanda working as part of a work
gang on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and then was
exposed to you know, all of the toxic dusts that
(06:39):
men who carved out tunnels and mountains were exposed to,
and and he probably died of you know, what we
might call coal miners disease. So that since then he
was a you know, the legendary John Henry was a
was a victim of sort of the first the first
wave of mass incarceration of black people. So Scott Nelson
(07:01):
concluded that the meaning of the story for for everyday
black folks, it was like a cautionary tail, don't let
this happen to you. Run away as fast as you can,
don't get caught up in this system. So we have these,
I'm going to say, competing versions of what the what
(07:23):
the legend means for For me, I sort of lean
more toward the former, because I think it really taps more,
It taps more, more more deeply, more authentically into the
into the spirit you know, of of Black Americans, to
(07:45):
confront adversity, to not give up on their dreams to succeed,
you know, against the odds. So it's more of a
of a fight, if you will, kind of response than
a flight kind of response. And then, of course I
think that there are both rewards and costs associated with
(08:10):
engaging in that kind of fight response.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So with the story in the back of his mind,
doctor James headed off to college and became a professor
of epidemiology at UNC Chapel Hill. He studied diseases and
their causes, and he decided to look at the problem
of high blood pressure in black men in eastern North Carolina.
He said he chose this population because they were unlikely
to regularly go to the doctor and very likely to
(08:37):
die of heart attack and stroke, the end result of
a life with high blood pressure or hypertension.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
And so a physician colleague of mine gave me the
names of six of his blackmail patients whom I could interview.
So I drove about fifty five miles north of Chaprio
to a farm in Aliments County to speak to a
man by the name of mister John Martin. And he
(09:04):
was retired. He was seventy one years of age at
the time. He was waiting for me in his back.
It was mid July, very hot, so I welcomed me warmly,
inviting me to sit next to him and chair on
the big tree, and we just started talking and he
began to tell me his life story. It was a
phenomenal story, going into a sharecropper family in nineteen oh seven.
(09:29):
His father was, of course uneducated and could never get
out of debt because the sharecropper system was designed to
keep particularly black sharecroppers perpetually in debt. And so when
John Martin sid John Martin was oh probably an early lesson,
and he saw, you know how his father just fretted
(09:50):
and hardy worked and he could just never get ahead.
He vowed that that would not be his fate under
new circumstances, would he he be caught up in that
kind of explotative system. So some years later, when he
became a young man, got married, and he was a
cropper himself, because he had the drop out of school
(10:11):
in the second grade in order to help out on
the farm. His wife's brother was a was a landowner,
an independent landowner, and his wife also came from a
family that owned their own land. And so both of them,
his wife and his brother in law, prevailed upon him
to take the risk and go to the bank and
(10:34):
get alone and buy his own property. So, with some
considerable reluctance, he did, and he got a mortgage, a
forty year mortgage to purchase seventy five acres of fertile
North Carolina farmland. And he always had this sort of
(10:55):
deep sense of vulnerability to you know, powerful forces, because
because he saw what had happened to his his father,
And by working literally night and day for you know,
six days a week, he with a lot of help
from his wife, managed to pay it off in five years,
(11:17):
a huge accomplishment. And so then he turned to me
and he said, I think that's the reason why my
legs a whole lot of whack. I pushed myself too
hard in the fields. Now I knew that he had
high blood pressure, and he had two keynes that were
(11:38):
leaning against the chair in which he was sitting. So
he was suffering from a very severe case of ostio arthritis.
And in the course of telling me about his life story,
he also told me that in his mid fifties or so,
he had to go to the hospital and have forty
percent of his stomach removed because he had a very
(12:00):
serious case of peptic ulcers.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Yeah, So he had these three major diseases that had
a huge stress.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Opponent stress component, meaning these diseases that can be caused
or triggered by stress.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah, the stress plays a role. So he'd been talking
for maybe a couple of hours, and his wife came
to the in to the door and she uh said,
John Henry, it's time for lunch and uh and and
bring your guests with you. So I looked at him
and I said, your name is John Henry, And he said, yeah,
(12:36):
John Henry Martin, and I thought, just like the legendary
John Henry, went up against the machine, and in the
case of John y Ney Martin, the machine was the sharecropper.
Speaker 6 (12:44):
System, which he beat.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
He won his struggle against the machine, the economic machine
that was the sharecropper system, but he paid a price.
I began to think, well, maybe there's something here, you know,
maybe there's something here because his story reminded me. Johnny
(13:14):
Martin's story reminded me a lot of the story of
my parents, the story of my grandparents. My grandfathers on
both my mother's side and my father's side were share robbers.
So I could identify with what John Hind Martin was
telling me, and I thought, his story is.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
Not just his story, this is really the story of
black people, black people in America having to go up
against these very powerful political and economic forces, these systems,
these institutions that are in place to keep black people
(13:57):
subjugated and forcing them to have to work extremely hard
in order to make ends meet and in order to
try to move ahead.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
So that really led them for the John Henderson hypothesis
that maybe that's the explanation of why we see so
much high blood pressure and strokes and heart attacks that
affect African Americans, particularly working class African Americans, fairly early
in adult life. And then, of course the challenge became,
(14:29):
how do I test this? And so I came up
with twelve questions that constitute the John Hendrism Scale for
active coping or high effort coping. And I can give you,
(14:54):
if you wish, a couple of sample questions. Yes, so's
the first question. When things don't go the way I
want them to, that just makes me work even harder.
Now the response options are strongly agree, some would agree,
don't know, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. So here's the second question.
(15:17):
Once I make up my mind to do something, I
stay with it until the job is completely done. So
you know, the remaining questions continue to work this theme
of tenacity, persistence, not giving up. So that's the John
Henderson Scale.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And guess what his hunch was right? He found a
very strong correlation between scoring high on the John Henryism
scale and having hypertension and all of its attendant problems
like stroke and heart attack. The more these men strived
for excellence, the sicker they became, and the shorter they lived,
and contrary to what doctor James and his colleagues speculated,
(15:59):
the link was there even for those who had already
moved up the socioeconomic louder, who had achieved success in
stability and were aiming to achieve even more. As we
all do.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
This is this was very surprising to us. I can't
emphasize that enough. So this is the late nineteen eighties
when at the time there had been very little epidemiological
research on the health of middle class black people, and
we sort of expected to see that, oh, they will
be doing so much better than they're working class counterparts. Right,
(16:31):
we're talking about the you know, post civil rights movement.
You know, you know, folks who came of age in
the nineteen sixties, who benefited from the nineteen sixty four
Civil Rights Act, nineteen sixty five, the civil rights legislation,
and now they were moving into these white spaces from
which you know, black folks had for the most part
(16:53):
been excluded. There may be a lot of physiological wear
and tear that attends, you know, growing up our gangs,
taking on these intrinsic shape shifting institutional constraints against upward
social mobility.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
That's wild I mean, I understand it, I understand.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
It, but yeah, I mean obviously very disturbing, right, a
very disturbing finding. So what the data are telling us?
What these data are telling us? And again I want
to emphasize that this is not just one study, but
there are multiple studies that have shown this effect. What
(17:40):
this is telling us is that successful upward mobility in
America for people of color, not just Black Americans, but
for people of color comes with the price. Just like
we saw in the story of John Henry Martin, he
achieved there was upward social mobility. He became a landowner,
(18:04):
he became an independent farmer. He had some wealth, but
he paid a price.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I kept wondering how doctor James's findings extended to women.
At the end of one popular version of the John
Henry Song, the story goes on to talk about his widow,
Polly Anne, who just picked up John Henry's hammer and
went right on driving steel in his place. So I
spoke to a professor at the University of Michigan's School
of Public Health, doctor Arlene Geronimus.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
My area of study is health inequity.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Okay, tell me more about that. I think that's something
we all want to know a lot about right now.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Which is interesting to me because thirty years ago people
weren't that interested.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
But doctor Geronymus began her research into health inequity back
in the seventies in a school for pregnant teen moms.
She had a hunch about teen pregnancy and the way
we thought about it that it wasn't the very worst
thing to ever happen to someone, and it wasn't nearly
as negatively impactful on people's lives as other larger forces
in society. It wasn't the root of all evil. But
(19:14):
in observing the poorer moms or the moms of color,
she did notice that they often had health problems that
usually don't appear until much later in life, problems that
had nothing to do with being pregnant. What was going on?
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Well, I came to this theory I now pursued for
all these decades, which I called weathering, which was the
idea that if you're part of a denigrated group, you're
both exposed to more assaults that wear down your health
at earlier ages, and so that's weathering, as in a
(19:51):
rock being you know, weathered by wind and rain over centuries,
but you're also in this you know, this is what
I had seen initially in the School for Pregnant Moms.
You're also weathering in the sense that you're having to
and this actually relates a lot to some of the
concepts in Sherman James's work, having to expend so much
(20:17):
effort and coping with all the things you're exposed to
because you're still trying to withstand the storm. You're trying
to survive it. You're trying to even overcome it or
help overcome it for the next generation. If we're talking
about racism and poverty that keeps you chronically stressed even
while you're sleeping. It's not something you can just say,
(20:39):
let me meditate, or let me try to reframe the situation,
let me smile and put on my high heels and
pretty dress. Feel positive. These are things that are happening
day in and day out, and they're they're happening to you,
and they're happening as you, as I said, work very
positively and assertively and proactively to survive them, withstand them.
(21:05):
And I've come to believe, you know, some of them
is just objective things in your environment. You know, meditating
isn't going to help you deal with environmental toxicity. Meditating
isn't going to help you deal with the fact in
order to feed your children. Given that you know the
value of real wages, which was never very high in
(21:26):
the lower rungs, has gotten even less. Means you have
to do two or three jobs, or take night shift
jobs that impen on your sleep, or that you don't
have a car, so you're relying on really bad public
transportation to try and get to your various jobs. You're
(21:46):
also juggling how do you get to your kids to school?
How do you have them taking care of when they're home.
At the same time, you don't have any control over
the hours you work, So there's just this endless coping
that is kind of psycho I might call it psychosocial.
And what I've come to understand and what I think
(22:06):
goes beyond a lot of how people think about stress.
Besides it, it's not just this individual thing you can
manage or control. Is that a very big part of
what sets off all those stress reactions in your body?
The cort is all and all of that is that
(22:27):
we all as human beings, need to have a sense
of how safe we are in any particular situation, and
safe can mean literally life or death safe, or it
can mean are we somewhere where we can be authentic,
where we will be treated fairly. So it can mean
things short of that life or death, or could mean
(22:50):
you know, the interception of them, such as if you're
a black person stopped by a police officer, that's both
something that you worry is unsafe and it could be
life threatening also, So we set off these stress reactions
that people kind of vernacul really know is fight or flight.
(23:11):
But if you think about what happens when you set
them off, you start to see how your your health
wears down early along the very things that cause the
health and equities by race and class in the United States.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I think when you were talking about the like you know,
having so many jobs and not sleeping and taking public
transportation and all of that, I feel like for a
large part of our society in America anyway, those are
the actually the answers, those are the solves, right, Like
get another work harder if you don't have a car,
(23:59):
take the bus. It's like, just change your attitude, you know,
be more positive, like be optimistic and have a better mindset.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
What I've seen is in the very same populations who
weather I've never seen more resilient people who keep going
on in the face of adversity, and who can be
very optimistic, and who have all these sayings and support
from you know, the people there in networks with their
loved ones about you know, take one foot forward or
(24:31):
you know, keep on keeping on. But given that I've
seen how optimistic and what a good attitude by you know,
by some measures people in these communities have, and they
still get so sick, it certainly doesn't seem to me
that that's much good evidence that that being optimistic or
(24:55):
you know, having grit, or being resilient or making the
best of bad situations is what's going to make you healthy.
It certainly hasn't worked in these circumstances. You know, you'd
have people would have to they'd have to accept how
inequitably structured our world is, and that they didn't really
earn their right to have vacations and time off for
(25:19):
yoga and me time. We're going to get your me
time when you're raising kids and working night shifts and
then working another shift in the day, and then trying
to figure out do you pay your electricity bill or not.
Do you fight with your landlord that he hasn't fixed
the heater in your building? And you have to make
(25:39):
these decisions all the time, And then you're also being
told you don't work hard, you don't have future orientation,
you're not a good person, you had your children too young,
which just proves you aren't a good person. If you
just really you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, you
(26:00):
get all the same things we got. Those are stressful
things to work against.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
Two.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I wish I could say that these findings shocked me,
but instead they affirmed a feeling I've been having about
the self improvement woo woo coachy world. There's just something
really privileged and tone deaf about the idea of picking
yourself up by your bootstraps, an idea we've heaped upon
people of color in this country, I think, to absolve
white people of having to do any hard work to
(26:38):
help their fellow man. An idea that we've gifted white people,
convincing us we've earned everything we have, An idea designed
to keep those in power and power while blaming people
we oppress for their powerlessness. The mindset stuff from Napoleon Hill,
the individual responsibility of the unemployed folks in Texas, Ray
(26:59):
Higden's insistence that you just need to defy your negative
feelings to overcome adversity. These are all just distractions from
the larger forces that make it harder for song many
people to rise in this country, things like racism and
sexism and all the isms I'm constantly banging on about.
Despite what these pitchmen might say, you cannot think yourself
(27:20):
out of being the only woman in a business meeting.
Believe me, I've tried. There are people, groups of people
for whom this think and grow rich stuff is just
plainly detrimental, and that it's bad for society on the whole.
When entire enormous communities suffer in an effort to not suffer,
we all suffer. I want to put you in a
room with Tony Robbins while he's like screaming about how
(27:45):
you know this like rugged individualism and you know your
mindset just needs to overcome stuff, And no, it's more complicated.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
It's more complicated. These motivational speakers have figured something out right,
you know, how to speak to the aspirations of people
and how to connect their stick with the American dream.
(28:15):
And and you know, we Americans, you know how mind
is conditioned right to think about our country as a
place where hard work pays off. I mean, we all
of us have internalized to some degree that notion, that aspiration.
(28:37):
They have been sold the American dream. A lot of
us have been sold the American dream. This is where
I want to give them some grace. Let me put
it that way. What they don't know is the kind
of thing that you and I have been talking about.
They don't they really don't know the physiological costs associated
(28:58):
with this not the question for me. The question becomes
what would they say if they knew? How would it
change their their message? How would it change what they
say to people if they knew? But they don't know.
And of course it's a very powerful dream, isn't it.
I mean, I mean, what a wonderful idea the American
(29:19):
dream is. I mean, it's a powerful idea. It attracts,
It has attracted people from all over the world, you know,
in search of opportunities to be freer than you know.
They're able to be free in their in their home
countries too, to realize their potential to to be safe
(29:40):
from harm, to be successful economically, to gain wealth, to
pass something on to the next generation, to make it
easier for the next generation to live their lives, and
have been the case for them. There's nothing wrong with
the dream, but it's a dream. The problem is. The
(30:01):
problem is, and you mentioned this, you know earlier, the
you know, the record of individualism that is such a
a core attribute of American culture, the notion that that America,
that the United States is a meritocracy.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I was just gonna say, yeah, the meritocracy thing.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, yeah, that you deserve what you get and you
get what you deserve, right and and that yeah, in
the end is really up to you. So don't ask me,
you know, to pay higher taxes so that, you know, opportunity,
so the opportunity structure can be expanded, and we can
(30:46):
have some social safety nets that will make your striving
to be successful less costly. And other countries have in
place much stronger social safety nets such that the kind
of other mobility striving, the kind of desire you know,
(31:08):
for self realization, to realize your potential, you know, to
live a life that is meaningful and satisfying, does not
come with it the pursuit of it of that kind
of life does not come with a unnecessary cost to
your health, and that is one of the things that
distinguishes our country from other rich countries in the world.
(31:33):
Right one could argue that that is the most distinguishing
factor that distinguishes the United States of America from our
peer countries elsewhere elsewhere in the world. It's very sobering,
but it's important to know that this phenomenon exists. And
(31:55):
now that we know it, and we have to keep
you know, I have to keep talking about it. We
have to engage in educating the public. Of course, there'll
be the skeptics, you know, but we have to We
have to do our best, certainly to educate policymakers and advocate,
(32:16):
you know, for social and economic policies that made abble
mobility striving, and that's costly.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
We're gonna leave you today with a version of John
Henry sung by the civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who
died this year.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Enjoy John Henry.
Speaker 8 (32:38):
He could hammer, he could whistle, he could sing.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
Went to the.
Speaker 9 (32:44):
Mountain early in the morning just to hear his hammer ring,
Lord Law, just to hear his hammer ring, and just
to hear his hammer ring, Lord Law, just to hear
his hammer ring.
Speaker 8 (32:56):
But John Henry was a little baby sitting on us,
that is me, picked up.
Speaker 9 (33:02):
A hammer and a little piece of steel, said, hamm
will be the death of me, Lord God, yes, hammill
be the death his hand will be the death of me,
Lord Lord, Yes, hamm will.
Speaker 6 (33:13):
Be the death me.
Speaker 8 (33:15):
Well, John Harry's family needed money, said he didn't have
but a dime. If you wait till the rise of
sun goes down, I'll get it from the man in
the mind.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Lord Lord, I'll get it from the man in the mind.
I'll get it from the man in the mind.
Speaker 9 (33:31):
Lord Lord, I'll get it from the man in the mind.
Speaker 8 (33:34):
Well, the captain said to John Henry, Don Harry, what
can you do?
Speaker 6 (33:40):
I canroister check, I can lay a track.
Speaker 9 (33:42):
I can pick and shovel to Lord God, I can
pick and shovel too. I can pick and shovel to
Lord a Lord, I can pick and shovel too.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Well, to Harry said to the captain, a man ain't
nothing but a man.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
But let your Steve tre beat me down.
Speaker 9 (34:01):
Well, I'll die with the hammer in my hand, Lord God,
I'll die with the hammer in my hand. I'll die
with the hammer in my hand. Lord, Lord, I'll die
with the hammer in my hand.
Speaker 8 (34:12):
Well, the captain said to John Henry, I gotta bring
me a steam drill.
Speaker 6 (34:17):
Round, hon, bring me a steam drill out on the job.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Gone, wha that steel on down?
Speaker 6 (34:22):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Lord? Go wha that's steel on down? How go hoop
that steel on down?
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And lordig hook that steel on down?
Speaker 8 (34:31):
Well, John Henry said to his shaker, shade, go out.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
Don't you sing? Thrown fifteen pounds from my hips down?
Speaker 9 (34:40):
Listen to the col steel ring, Lord, Lord, Yes, listen
to the cold steel ring.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh, listen to the col steel ring. Lord, O Lord,
I won't you listen to the cold steal ring.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Well.
Speaker 8 (34:50):
The man who invented the steam drill hard, he was
mighty fine.
Speaker 6 (34:56):
John Henry drove this fifteen feet and the steam.
Speaker 9 (34:59):
Drill lonely made nine, Lord, Lord, steam drill lonely made nine. Yes,
the steam drill lonely made nine, Lord Lord, the steam
drill lonely made nine. Well, the captain said to John Henry,
how are you mountain sinking in?
Speaker 6 (35:15):
John Henry said.
Speaker 9 (35:16):
To the captain, on mine, nothing but my hamm a
sucking win Lord, Lord, nothing but my hamm a sucking win. Hey,
nothing but my hamm a sucking win Lord, and Laurie
ain't nothing but my hamm a sucking wind.
Speaker 8 (35:28):
Well, John Henry said to the captain, Look, Bell, know
what I see?
Speaker 6 (35:34):
Hold an choke? You drill done broke?
Speaker 9 (35:37):
And you can't drive steel like me? Lord, Lord, can't
drive steel like me? Oh, you can't drive steel like me. No, No,
you can't drive steal like me.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
Well, John Harry drove into the mountain.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
The Dream has written, hosted, and executive produced by me
Jane Marie. Our producer is Mike Richter, with help from
Nancy Golumbiski and Joy Sandford. Our editor is Peter Clowney.
The Dream is a co production of Little Everywhere in
Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Miss Hammerin and Died Well.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
John Henry had a little woman hand the name of
Polly Anne.
Speaker 6 (36:12):
She walked down the truck, never looked back.
Speaker 9 (36:15):
Pollanne Roste like a man, Lord Pollyann ro Steel like
a man. Polly Anne Roste like a man, Lord, Lord
Polyandro Steel like a man.
Speaker 8 (36:26):
By the people to turn Henry to the White House,
have they buried him in the sun?
Speaker 6 (36:31):
Heavy Loco mode of cameroaring by.
Speaker 9 (36:34):
Says their loves to you, Driving Man, Lord Lord, just
their lives is to you. Driving Man, has there loves
to you, Driving Man? Who he there loveses to You're
driving man, has there lives to you, Driving Man, Lord
lordes their lives to you Driving.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
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offering bonus content, exclusive binge opportunity, and add free listening
(37:10):
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Look for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or
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