[1][2] Hezekiah was a poor black farmer, who worked his two acres of land; but, he also saved up for and read books.
The white folks thereabouts thought him harmless enough, but that "reading ain't no good for an ignorant nigger".
And they hung Hezekiah as high as a pigeon, And the nice folks around said, "Well, he had it comin' 'Cause the son-of-a-bitch didn't have no religion!
A live performance, in which he speaks the words over a solo female voice singing and humming the spiritual "Kumbaya" and a sparse instrumental accompaniment, is included on his 1959 album Way Out Humor,[3] re-released in 1964 as Lord Buckley in Concert.
[2][4] Early in his career, Bob Dylan performed the poem, in slightly shortened form, as a spoken piece with guitar accompaniment in a style based on that of Lord Buckley.