Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Echoes the chorus of the song “Dixie,” part of which runs as follows: 
 Then I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray! In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie, Away, away, away down South in Dixie, Away, away, away down South in Dixie. 
 Since “Dixie” emerged from blackface mistrelsy and was a Confederate anthem during the Civil War, Hughes’s borrowing is heavily ironic.
Song for a Dark Girl