John Henry
John Henry is the most iconic folk hero in African American tradition, a steel-driving man who raced against a steam drill to prove that human dignity could not be replaced by a machine. According to legend, John Henry worked as a hammer-swinging laborer blasting tunnels through mountains for the expanding railroad. When a salesman brought a steam-powered drill to the worksite, John Henry challenged it to a contest. For hours he swung his nine-pound hammer, driving steel deeper than the machine. He won — drilling fourteen feet to the steam drill's nine — but his heart gave out, and he died wit