This is the first Strat-shaped Road Dog I have done.
The body is made from salvaged pine 2×4, neck is hard maple, with a persimmon fretboard.
Pickups are Dismal homespun single coils
Hipshot fulcrum tremolo and locking tuners
New headstock shape, too. It is a bit bigger than my usual one.
Pickguard is a 1966 Alabama “Heart of Dixie” license tag.
1966 was the first year African American citizens were allowed to vote; but although they comprised a large portion of the rural population of Alabama and other southern states, they were heavily disenfranchised by efforts to prevent them from registering.
The Lowndes County Freedom Organization was formed in 1965 to empower black residents of this county, and provide an alternative to the overtly racist Alabama Democratic party. They chose the Black Panther as their symbol, and this subsequently became the icon for a broader movement, as news spread across the country to Oakland, California, where Hughey Newton and Bobby Seale were forming what would become known as the Black Panther Party.
The reaction from the white populace was far from cordial.
Most blacks in the rural south at this time lived as sharecroppers on white-owned farms under oppressive economic conditions, and after the 1966 election, large numbers were forced off these farms and became homeless, with no means of support.
A large “tent city” cropped up in Lowndes County, where many families lived for the next two years while organisers worked to find them jobs and housing.
