Why is John Henry a folk hero exactly?

[Weltall]

While I do not for a moment dismiss him as a folk hero (but rather I argue that he is one for the reasons I wrote above,) one could perhaps write off his stardom as PC. He is black; thus he is the token folk hero. Or not--just throwing that out there, that you may mull thereupon.

I think we can safely assume this isn't the case, because John Henry's fame began (and was arguably greater) back in the days when being black was definitely not en vogue.