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The Death of Emmett Till |
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'Twas down in Mississippi |
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Not so long ago |
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When a young boy from Chicago Town |
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Walk in a southern door |
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This boy's fateful tragedy |
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We should all remember well |
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The color of his skin was black |
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And his name was Emmett Till |
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Some men they dragged him to a barn |
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And there they beat him up |
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They said they had a reason |
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But I disremember what |
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They tortured him and did some things |
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Too evil to repeat |
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There was screamin' sounds inside the barn |
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There was laughin' sound out on the street |
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They dragged his body to a gulch |
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Amidst a bloodred rain |
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And they through him in the waters wide |
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To sease his screaming pain |
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The reason that they killed him there |
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And I'm sure it ain't no lie |
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He was a blackskin boy |
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So he was born to die |
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And so to stop these United States |
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Of yelling for a trial |
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Two brothers they confessed that they |
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Killed poor Emmett Till |
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But on the jury there were men |
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Who helped the brother commit this awful crime |
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And so this trial was a mockery |
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But nobody seemed to mind |
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I saw the morning paper |
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But I could not bear |
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To see the brothers smiling |
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On that courthouse stairs |
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For the jury found them innocent |
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And the brothers they went free |
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Whilt Emmett's body floats the foam |
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Of a Jim Crow southern sea |
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If you can't speak out against this kind of thing |
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A crime that's so unjust |
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Your eyes are filled with deadman's dirt |
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Your mind is filled with dust |
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Your arms and legs, they must be in shackles and chains |
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And your blood it must cease to flow |
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For you'd let this human race |
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Sick so God-awful low |
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This song is just a reminder |
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To tell my fellow man |
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That this kind of thing still lives today |
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In that ghost-robed Klu Klux Klan |
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But if we all then think alike |
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If we give all we can give |
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We'd make this Great land of ours |
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An even greater place to live |
