What's the Use of Walking if There's a Freight Train Going Your Way? Black Hoboes and Their Songs
Book signing by Paul Garon

Friday, January 13th

5-8pm

Chicago Rare Books
703 Washington St.
Evanston, IL 60202
(847) 328-2132

“Paul Garon has produced yet another masterpiece of cultural history. The stories and songs he gathers together in this remarkable book disrupt common notions of what we mean by ‘freedom’ when it comes to black folk. Hoboes represented a significant segment of the black working class, and their constant movements were both evidences of constraints and acts of freedom. And as he so eloquently demonstrates, the men and women who took the road and their bards have so much to teach us about America’s ‘bottom rail’.”

-- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002)


Paul Garon, founder of Living Blues magazine, author of Blues and the Poetic Spirit, The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story of Peetie Wheatstraw and His Songs, and, with Beth Garon, Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues, will be signing copies of his new book, What's the Use of Walking if There's a Freight Train Going Your Way? Black Hoboes and Their Songs (Chicago: Charles H Kerr Co., 2006), co-authored with Gene Tomko.