Rainbow Round My Shoulder: The Blue Trail of Black Ulysses

The Black Ulysses Trilogy presents a compendium of African American folklore collected by pioneer sociologist/folklorist Howard W. Odum. The trilogy collects stories, songs, and folktales, which Odum uses to weave the narrative of his chief informant John Wesley Gordon (Black Ulysses) as he travels the country, fights in World War I, and returns to the South. Odum’s character demonstrates the extent to which folklore subjects and folklore style were part of his daily life. The book partially anticipates Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men (1935), which placed folk materials in a narrative connected to Hurston. Odum, however, steps back from the narrative and allows his character to speak in a rich and energetic dialect. Rainbow Round My Shoulder presents a feisty, inventive, marginalized folk hero with a zest for life.