one version of the story goes, he saw a decrepit, possibly disfigured old Black man singing while grooming a horse on the property of a white man whose last name was Crow. On went the light bulb. Rice took in the tune and the movements but failed, it seems, to take down the old man’s name. So in his song, the horse groomer became who Rice needed him to be. “Weel about and turn about jus so,” went his tune, “ebery time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow.” And just like that, this white man had invented the character who would become the mascot for two centuries of legalized racism.
