NARRATOR: For centuries, mankind has told stories about people
who have the ability to perform feats
that require extraordinary physical strength.
But why are we so fascinated by these superhuman characters?
We love stories about humans that push the boundaries
of exceptionalism.
And history is full of this kind of folk hero
who is stronger than any other human.
We have characters like Hercules who are half-god.
That's the source of his strength.
There was someone like Samson from the Bible,
whose hair gives him strength beyond what
a normal human might have.
And nowadays, we have superheroes--
Batman, Spider-Man, characters who,
similarly, are human, but a little bit better
than other humans.
All these stories let us talk about the possibilities
of human endurance and human capability.
How far can we push ourselves?
How much faster and stronger can we be?
NARRATOR: Talcott, West Virginia.
Here, at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains,
lies a decommissioned railroad tunnel,
known as the Great Bend Tunnel.
According to folklore, this was the site of a famous legend
from the 1870s about a superhuman railroad
worker named John Henry.
CHRISTEL TEMPLE: The legend is that John
Henry was 6' 6", 280 pounds, muscular, solid, glistening.
You could see him half a mile away.
The legend has it that he was born in enslavement.
And he had all these goals for his family,
coming out of enslavement.
And he says, I want a good job.
I want to provide for my family.
And he saw Casino Railroad laying track.
And John Henry shows up and says, I'm your guy.
The fable has it that any man who signed up to work
would get 50 acres of land if they completed the railroad.
And sometimes this railroad had to be
completed through a mountain.
And so John Henry not simply laid rail, the railroad track,
but he had to drive a stake into the rock,
which creates enough space to then load dynamite.
John Henry was the best steel driver.
And then here comes a man with the steam drill.
The legend speaks of this race taking place between John
Henry and the machine.
NARRATOR: As the story goes, there
was a competition between John Henry and the machine
to see which of them could drill farthest
into the side of the mountain in a single day.
During the contest, the strength of John Kerry
was reportedly so powerful that the blows
from his twin sledgehammers shook the mountain itself.
The story is that the steam drill only went 9 feet.
John Henry went 14.
And so John Henry is superhuman and more
supreme than the machine.
John Henry beats the machine in this competition.
But he passes away.
He dies of a heart attack.
He dies from overexertion.
And what we have here is John Henry
begins to symbolize this overpowering physique
of a muscle man and the ability to achieve
in the face of extreme odds.
CHRISTEL TEMPLE: The legend of John Henry
represents this Black man, this hero, who did superhuman
feats from the 19th century.
It overshadows the harshness of the Reconstruction period.
But it also shows us how Black men who were able-bodied,
who had that spirit of willing to do
anything they needed to do to provide for their families.
LYNNE MCNEILL: Most of us know about John
Henry from a literary work.
Like so many folk heroes from the same time period
in American history, Paul Bunyan, Joe Magarac, Pecos
Bill, they are all compatriots of John Henry
in this larger than life, super-capable American folk
hero model.
And what they capture is the spirit of industry
that our nation so badly wanted to embody and project
to the rest of the world at this point in history.
[guitar playing]
NARRATOR: The legend of John Henry's battle
against the steam drill was first
immortalized in an African-American folk ballad.
Since then, the inspirational story
has also been celebrated numerous times
in magazines, plays, and books.
Another superhuman feat of John Henry
is that he was able to inspire so many.
And so whether it's inspiring in terms of actually working
on the railroad or other industries,
John Henry was a beacon of that.
Also in terms of him losing his life,
that's a sacrifice that those who
came after him could appreciate as they
strived to be as good as John Henry.
ADILIFU NAMA: There also is an overlap certainly with John
Henry and superheroes.
In the early 1990s, Superman passed away.
And that set up a situation for the comic book
version of John Henry to come in and save the day.
As the character of steel, in order
to save the citizens of Metropolis,
he builds a suit encased in steel
and carries, of all things--
would you believe it--
a sledge hammer.
And that speaks to kind of, like, the reinterpretation
of John Henry within the framework
of the superhero, Afro-futuristic,
sci-fi version.
The idea that John Henry is a superhero,
standing firmly in that space of post-enslavement
and Reconstruction, is really phenomenal.
The legend of John Henry proves that human strength
is inherent in all of us.