A poem about this man by Margaret Walker notes his blue gums and practice of catching barracuda, and claims that his hand was as "big as a hog's fat ham."  
A poem about this man by Margaret Walker notes his blue gums and practice of catching barracuda, and claims that his hand was as "big as a hog's fat ham."  This man curses in "giraffe-tall words" and demands a "gallon of barleycorn" just after becoming alive in a poem about his "birth" by Melvin Tolson.  This man was the subject of a popular novel by Roark Bradford which was made into a Broadway musical, and the title of a Colson Whitehead novel refers to his "days."  He also appears in the John Kieens novel A Man Ain't Nothin' but a Man, but is best known for appearing in a song which refers to events which took place in the early 1870s in West Virginia.  FTP, name this folk hero, an African American workman who wins a competition with a steam drill.
A poem about this man by Margaret Walker notes his blue gums and practice of catching barracuda, and claims that his hand was as "big as a hog's fat ham."  
John Henry