Although Lead Belly sang songs such as "Bourgeois Blues" and "Jim Crow Blues," was he a protest singer? Hear historian and director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Lonnie Bunch III’s take on the subject.

Read more about Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection

Watch videos of Lonnie Bunch discussing Lead Belly and of archivist Jeff Place on the box set and Lead Belly’s legacy.