“John Henry was a little baby
Sittin’ on his papa’s knee
He picked up a hammer & a little piece of steel
Said “Hammer’s gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord!
Hammer’s gonna be the death of me.”

“John Henry, hero of a widely sung African American folk ballad. It describes his contest with a steam drill, in which John Henry crushed more rock than did the machine but died “with his hammer in his hand.” Writers and artists see in John Henry a symbol of the worker’s foredoomed struggle against the machine and of the Black man’s tragic subjugation to and defiance of white oppression.”

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica