We know Woody Guthrie as the role model for Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and as the Bard of Greenwich Village - and of course as the author of America’s ‘other National Anthem’, This Land is Your Land. As these essays show, Woody became the troubadour we all know and love as he made his way West from Oklahoma to Los Angeles, meeting America’s people and sharpening his message, in words that were soon to become iconic. Celebrated Guthrie experts here cover Guthrie’s racial egalitarianism as he threw off the worst of his Texas / Oklahoma roots.