The Death Of Emmett Till (Live)

The Death of Emmett Till

'Twas down in Mississippi

Not so long ago

When a young boy from Chicago Town

Walk in a southern door

This boy's fateful tragedy

We should all 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 disremember what

They tortured him and did some things

Too evil to repeat

There was screamin' sounds inside the barn

There was laughin' sound out on the street

They dragged his body to a gulch

Amidst a bloodred rain

And they through him in the waters wide

To sease his screaming pain

The reason that they killed him there

And I'm sure it ain't no lie

He was a blackskin boy

So he was born to die

And so to stop these United States

Of yelling for a trial

Two brothers they confessed that they

Killed poor Emmett Till

But on the jury there were men

Who helped the brother commit this awful crime

And so this trial was a mockery

But nobody seemed to mind

I saw the morning paper

But I could not bear

To see the brothers smiling

On that courthouse stairs

For the jury found them innocent

And the brothers they went free

Whilt 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 deadman's dirt

Your mind is filled with dust

Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains

And your blood it must cease to flow

For you'd let this human race

Sick so God-awful low

This song is just a reminder

To tell my fellow man

That this kind of thing still lives today

In that ghost-robed Klu Klux Klan

But if we all then think alike

If we give all we can give

We'd make this Great land of ours

An even greater place to live