[James A. Bland] Carry Me Back to Old Virginny / Sung by Haverly’s Colored Minstrels (Henry J. Wehman, NY, ca. 1880) 5 x 8 ins., 1pg. in an ornamental border. No. 107 of Wehman’s series of song sheets, with lyrics and two choruses.

Adopted as the official state song of Virginia, until the 1990s, when it was deemed demeaning to Black people, this tune, based on a Confederate soldiers hymn of the Civil War, became a Jim Crow favorite of nostalgic southern segregationists who were probably unaware that it was written in 1878 by African-American composer James Bland, who was born to free Black parents in New York. As the song sheet notes, it was popularly performed in the 1880s by a large troupe of “colored minstrels” from Georgia directed by white entrepreneur Jack Haverly.