Dylan

[stoutfellow]

Now there's an odd coincidence. I mentioned a while back that I'd added my first Dylan album to my collection. One of the songs on the album is "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", which told the story of Ms. Carroll's death at the hands of a tobacco farmer named William Zantziger. (She was a black barmaid who, when Zantziger demanded a drink, asked him to wait a minute. He caned her for this offense; later that evening, she collapsed and died of a stroke. Because it was unclear how much the caning had contributed to her death, he was only convicted of manslaughter. Dylan's song bitterly denounced him and the light sentence - 6 months, $625.)

Zantziger died last week.