The lyrics concern the Great Migration in the United States, the movement of African Americans from the South to cities in the North, with the singer talking about the "dear old Southland... where I belong",[1] and contain many racial stereotypes.[5] Armstrong's popularity among African-American audiences dropped because of the song, but at the same time it helped the trumpeter to make his fan base broader.[6] In protest during the 1950s, African Americans burned their copies of the song, which forced Armstrong to re-evaluate and change the song's lyrics in a reissue.[7] There is a 1942 film short of the song where Armstrong and others played slaves and farm workers.[1]
^William Howland Kenney: Jazz on the River. University of Chicago Press, 2005, p. 85. ISBN0-226-43733-7.
^Garrett, Charles Hiroshi (2008). Struggling to Define a Nation: American music and the twentieth century. University of California Press. p. 116. ISBN978-0-520-25486-2.
^Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 28. ISBN978-0-393-06582-4.
