Antedating of "Jim Crow"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Tue, 6 Jun 2006, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> I'm not surprised that once again the song precedes.  Surely one
> could not "jump Jim Crow" (in the sense of "execute the dance", let
> alone the fig. "change one's political principles") until after there
> was a "Jim Crow" song?

Yes, that makes sense.  The 1832 dating of the song must be erroneously
late.

Fred Shapiro


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