“These are the banana docks, and the checkers are calling out the grades and qualities and ripeness of bananas. Theyre white men and theyre directing the whole operation. Occasionally youll hear a song from one of the Negro dock wallopers, theyre toting bananas. . . . Come over here, boy, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up / Come on, Charlie, take em down / Step along here now, step along / Red above, yellow below, green across, jumbo, white flag / Hey, white flag, white below, red below to the west, Chinee on the wharf / Hey, boy, on the wharf / Nine below, eight below, seven above / West to the west / Nine outside, yellow outside, nine across / Ching-ching-ching of the tabulating machines / The hum and the click and the roll and the bumpity thumpity clanking of the conveyors / The chanting of the checkers and the steady hum of the men toting bananas, and occasionally a fragment of a song / A long time sweet daddy, a long time sweet mama / Oh-h-h doo-da, doo-da, doodle-ah, doodle-ah, doodle-ah, doo-da-a-a / Green flag, black flag, a light nine, and a light nine, and a light nine, and another light nine, and a light nine, and another light nine / Medium nine and another medium nine and another medium nine, and another medium nine / And a heavy nine, and a heavy nine, and a light nine, and another light nine . . . [He keeps going] And another yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow / Hey, boy, Chinee to the warehouse / Green flag, red flag, a black flag / Light nine, heavy nine, black nine, yellow nine / Green flag, green, light nine, yellow, black flag / Walk Charlie, let your green, green, green, yellow / Go above, come above, come on in, come on in, going by, my my my my my my / Come and get your lovin daddy / Oh, I am so sad and so blue and I think about you more and more every day / Ah, lord, more and more every day / [Softly] Green flag, another green, another green, yellow, yellow, yellow / Get em green there, Johnny, get em green / Come on it, come on in, going by, going by, Chinee to the warehouse / Hey, boy, Chinee / Come on Charlie / [loud] Walk, Charlie, walk.”

—Julian Lee Rayford in 1973, interviewed in And They All Sang; Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey by Studs Terkel, 2005.