Opening paragraphs...........................

Halley's Comet burned across the Mississippi night like a brakeman's lantern during June 1910, leading to suicides and whispers of Armageddon.  Up north in Hartford, the Connecticut Yankees were lamenting the recent passing of the brightest star in the American literary firmament, Mark Twain.  In New York City, W. E. B. Du Bois, anguished about race riots and lynchings around the nation, was preparing the first issue of The Crisis, the magazine of the new National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  In Reno, Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, was training for his July 4th title bout defense against former champ Jim Jeffries, "The Great White Hope," a spectacle that would lead to more race riots.  In Washington, D. C., Congress was debating the Mann White Slave Traffic Act, which would ban "the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes" - a law specifically targeted at Johnson that would soon send him to jail for traveling with his white girlfriend.
James Segrest and Mark Hoffman,  Moanin' At Midnight:  The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf