Background
Handcox was born February 5, 1904, in Brinkley, Arkansas.
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John L. Handcox
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As a child he admired the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, although he only attended school to the ninth grade.
Career
Handcox is noted for playing a "vital role in bettering the lives of sharecroppers and energizing labor union organizers and members." Despite his brief career, many of his songs were so popular that they became standard folk songs themselves, and continue to be sung today. Handcox"s father was a landowner, but they lost their property when he was crushed by a wagon. In 1935, Handcox joined the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and began writing songs and poetry to rally the group"s members.
Two years later, Charles Seeger and Sidney Robertson recorded him for the Library of Congress.
His songs were later promoted by fellow protest songsters, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Joe Glazer. After disappearing from the public eye for almost forty years, Handcox emerged in the 1980s for the 50th anniversary celebration of the STFU in Memphis.
In 1984, he composed two songs criticizing the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In November 2013 Michael Honey, a professor at the University of Washington Tacoma published a biography of Handcox"s life, titled Sharecropper"s Troubador: Handcox, the Southern Tenant Farmer"s Union, and the African American Song Tradition.
Honey was introduced to Handcox by Pete Seeger in 1985 and recorded and interviewed him at the Library of Congress that same year.
Pacific Northwest Labor History Association Records. 1971-1995. 1.83 cubic feet (3 boxes). At the Labor of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
