[Sheet Music]: Ma Mississippi Babe: A Mammy's Lullaby Harris, Charles K. African-Americana,Music

First edition. Cover illustration by Starmer. Quarto. Single bifolium with a single sheet insert making six pages. Light foxing and light creasing to the exterior, a small marginal tear to the insert, very good or better. For voice and piano. Plate impression, "Ma Mississippi Babe 4." A heartbreaking song, written dialect, about a parent lamenting the prejudice their child is forced to face due to the color of their skin, "Close yo' eyes ma pickanniny/Don't you cry no moah./You'll be white like other babies,/Up in Heaven suah [.] See all dem white faced chillun/Crowd all around so willin'/askin' to play with you." So, it goes without surprise to learn that during his time Charles K. Harris was known as "the king of tear jerkers," this is certainly one of them. *OCLC* locates five holdings.