The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie was a giant of Western American folk music, looming large in the American imagination. But the man who helped pioneer resistance music was also unfairly blacklisted and had anything but an easy life. Here's the tragic story of Woody Guthrie.

Named after the soon-to-be president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born July 14, 1912, in the small town of Okemah , Oklahoma. His father, Charles Guthrie, was a successful businessman, local politician, and KKK member — basically everything Woody would grow up to fight against. Although slavery was formally outlawed, Jim Crow laws, white supremacy, and an epidemic of racist violence were spreading across the country.

This was during a time when the KKK had nearly total control over the state of Oklahoma. The year before Woody's birth, Charley attended and possibly participated in the horrific lynching of Laura Nelson and her son, L.D. Nelson. Ten years later, the Tulsa Race Massacre was carried out by mobs of white men, roughly 60 miles from Guthrie's birthplace.

Though he came from money, family misfortunes would leave young Woody Guthrie struggling along with other poor, displaced, and Black Americans.

As a result, he quickly latched onto the egalitarian ideas of socialism. That his father embodied many of the things he'd come to stand against affected Woody, his work, and ideology profoundly.

Keep watching to see The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Woody Guthrie.

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Father was in the KKK | 0:17
Became self-sufficient | 1:31
Career and politics at odds | 2:45
Fought fascists with music | 3:59
FBI kept files on him | 5:23
Lost work for his politics | 6:36
Declining health and marriage | 8:03
Third marriage was brief | 8:50
Complicated relationships with his children | 9:50
Suffered in his final years | 10:46

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