The Death Of Emmett Till (Live)

The Death Of Emmett Till (Live Broadcast) - Bob Dylan

Written by：Bob Dylan

'Twas down in Mississippi

Not so long ago

When a young boy from Chicago Town

Walk in a southern door

This boy's dreadful tragedy

He should know 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 screaming sounds inside the barn

There was laughing sounds out on the street

Then they rolled his body down a gulf

Amidst a blood 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 a sure it ain't no lie

'Cause he was born in black skin bod

He was born with that

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 had 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

And your ears must be filled with dust

Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains

And your mind and mercy sees to flow

Or you will let

Our 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 a like

If we gave all we could give

We could make this great land of ours

A greater place to live