John Henry: An American Legend is the first book I ever read. I was about 7 or 8 years old and what drew my attention as I pulled it off the bookshelf from P.S. 89’s library room, was that the main character looked like my father. He was a Black man. What’s more, John Henry worked with his hands like my pops. Within the book we’re acquainted with the story of a freed slave who constructed railroad tunnels a huge hammer. He was a “steel-driving man” whose livelihood was being threatened by the te

John Henry (1986)