William Devereux Zantzinger, whose six-month sentence in the fatal caning of a black barmaid named Hattie Carroll at a Baltimore charity ball moved Bob Dylan to write a dramatic, almost journalistic song in 1963 that became a classic of modern American folk music, died on Jan. 3. He was 69.(NYT)
I think there are millions of us who have Dylan's song about this travesty of justice, and the crime behind it, seared into our consciousness forever, a critical part of the anti-racist awakening in our rebel youth. It remains as powerful today as it ever was.
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