Black Men Risked Their Lives Working as Brakemen to Manually Stop Trains
Trains originally had to physically be stopped by brakemen, who turned a wheel that engaged the brakes on individual rail cars. The wheel was located on top of the train car, and in the winter time, many brakemen fell between cars and were crushed to death. This continued until the air brake was invented.
John Henry Was a Real Person
Historical research found that the John Henry ballad was based on two different real people. One was named John William Henry, a 20-year-old Black freeman born in New Jersey. He went to Virginia to clean up battlefields after the Civil War. Another was a John Henry who worked on and died at the Big Bend Tunnel at Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
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