Editing W. C. Handy (section)

=== Later career and death ===
[[File:W. C. Handy (1949 portrait with trumpet).jpg|thumb|W. C. Handy in November 1949, playing trumpet in his music publishing office overlooking Times Square]]

In a 1938 radio episode of Ripley's ''Believe It or Not!'' Handy was described as "the father of jazz as well as the blues." Fellow blues performer [[Jelly Roll Morton]] wrote an open letter to ''Downbeat'' magazine fuming that he had invented jazz.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gussow|first=Adam|date=Fall 2002|title=Racial Violence, "Primitive" Music, and the Blues Entrepreneur: W. C. Handy's Mississippi Problem|journal=Southern Cultures|volume=8|issue=3|pages=56–77|doi=10.1353/scu.2002.0029|s2cid=145798645|via=RILM}}</ref>

After the publication of his autobiography, Handy published a book on African-American musicians, titled ''Unsung Americans Sung'' (1944). He wrote three other books: ''Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs'', ''Book of Negro Spirituals'', and ''Negro Authors and Composers of the United States''. He lived on [[Strivers' Row]] in [[Harlem]]. He became blind after an accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943.

From 1943 until his death, he lived in Yonkers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/07/nyregion/father-of-the-blues-is-remembered-in-mt-vernon-show.html|work=The New York Times|date=April 7, 1996|author=Lynn Ames|title=Father of the Blues Is Remembered In Mt. Vernon Show|accessdate=December 27, 2021}}</ref> His grandson is the physicist [[Carlos Handy]] (born 1950), who now leads the Handy Brothers Music Company.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Writer |first=Monica Collier Staff |date=2017-07-28 |title=Carlos Handy: Carrying on his grandfather's legacy |url=https://www.timesdaily.com/life/arts_theater/carlos-handy-carrying-on-his-grandfathers-legacy/article_b8610a73-20c4-556e-86f4-a42fc5967e2c.html |access-date=2023-10-09 |website=TimesDaily |language=en}}</ref> After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954 when he was 80. His bride was his secretary Irma Louise Logan, who he frequently said had become his eyes. In 1955, he had a stroke, and he began to use a wheelchair. More than 800 people attended his 84th birthday party at the [[Waldorf-Astoria Hotel]].

On March 28, 1958, Handy died of bronchial pneumonia at Sydenham Hospital in New York City.<ref name="king">{{cite news |title=W. C. Handy, Blues King, Dies at 84 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2nEgAAAAIBAJ&pg=2363%2C2701864 |access-date=November 21, 2018 |work=Lewiston Evening Journal |date=March 28, 1958 |page=A1}}</ref> Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's [[Abyssinian Baptist Church]]. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.