Wallace Saunders
On this date in 1900, one of America’s classic folk songs, The Ballad of Casey Jones, was written.
Wallace Saunders, a Black railroad laborer, wrote it. It was one of three songs he wrote, and very little is known about Wallace Saunders. He performed odd jobs for the railroad all his life.
At the time of Jones’ accident, Saunders was an engine wiper for the railroad shop in Canton, Mississippi. Saunders wrote The Ballad of Casey Jones the day after Jones' fatal accident.
Black First:
2,000 years of extraordinary achievement
by Jessie Carney Smith
Copyright 1994 Visible Ink Press, Detroit, MI
ISBN 0-8103-9490-1
