Songs against Racism
I just thought that I would post these songs here, we went over them in my English class, and I thought they were both good songs, so I'm posting them here.
(Lyrics only)
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"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago, When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door. This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well, The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till. Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up. They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what. They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat. There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street. Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain. The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie, Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die. And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial, Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till. But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime, And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind. I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs. For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free, While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea. If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust, Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust. Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow, For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low! This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan. But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give, We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live. 
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Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music |
Strange Fruit
Lewis Allen
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Comments
It sure is interesting, how music has been used to share experiences and document history. It was an awful time, I mean the racial nastiness. I guess it still exists, though not like back then. It would not have been a time I could have understood. I'm glad you feel the way you do. I'm glad you're open minded. It's a truly powerful way to be.