goodbye to charlie...

Shortly before midnight, April 14, 1912, the White Star liner Titanic, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, sheared its side on an iceberg 1300 miles from its destination. The next day, with over 1500 of its passengers and crew, the Titanic sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. It was the major disaster of the era, and it struck the imaginations of the rich, who lost friends and relatives on the ship, and the poor, to whom the ship represented the great shining and glistening world forever denied them and anyone they would ever know. The newspapers were full of it, people talked about it. The event went into the folk tradition in three ways: a little known Negro spiritual, a well-known camp and college song, and a widely-known toast.