Hard-Travelling Facts About Woody Guthrie, The Dust Bowl Troubadour
The Dust Bowl Troubadour Who Revived Folk Music
He travelled a hard dusty road, singing songs of protest against the injustice he saw around him. Overcoming early adversity, Woody Guthrie inspired future generations of folk musicians with his memorable songs and love of the common people. But just as Guthrie started to leave his early struggles behind, he would face the most terrible struggle of all.
1. His Name Was Presidential
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. His parents, Charley and Nora Guthrie, named the child after presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson, who would be elected later that year. While the name reflected mainstream Democratic party politics, Guthrie’s father’s political activities would soon take a sinister turn.
2. His Dad Was A Klansman
While Charley Guthrie was a successful land developer by day, he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan by night, joining the organization in 1915. He had even been present at a lynching back in 1911. With Jim Crow laws in force in Oklahoma, and the Klan terrorizing the area’s Black people, the young Woody Guthrie was a witness to the prejudice of his surroundings. Other traumatic events would shape the lad for years to come.
3. He Lost His Sister
When Guthrie was seven, his older sister Clara set her own clothes on fire during a fight with their mother. Lying on her bed, the horribly burned older girl told Guthrie not to cry, that she would be fine. But she was too far gone. The young Woody Guthrie was devastated. Meanwhile, the family’s financial fortunes were in steep decline.
4. His Father Lost His Shirt
Guthrie’s father had already lost most of the family’s wealth in a string of bad real estate deals. Hemorrhaging money by the day and himself badly burned in yet another fire, Charley went to recuperate with relatives in the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa, leaving Guthrie and his older brother Roy with their mother. While the two teenage boys ran wild, their mother went straight over the edge into the abyss.
