Sometimes I wish I was alive to hear Martin Luther King Jr. give his "I have a Dream Speech." I am just so inspired by this man. When I was studying in D.C. I would walk to the Lincoln Memorial from my apartment, bring a book to read, and sit on the steps of the memorial. One time I had to put my book down because I kept getting visuals of what it would be like to be there when he was giving his speech. I have also been writing my Gospel and Culture paper on Education Reform in Memphis. I have taken quite a close look at how the Civil Rights Movement and segregation have contributed to education in Memphis. Let's just say my love for studying history has been rekindled.
On Tuesday I have to perform some poetry and lyric pieces. Most people did a poetry program about people being lost and not knowing God. I thought I would switch it up and do it on poetry and song lyrics from the Civil Rights Movement. Totally normal, right? Probably not.
A tiny part of it is below from Mr. Bob Dylan himself. P.s. If you are super cool and think that spending time reading MLK's "I have a Dream Speech" is worthwhile (which it is) then read it here.
Death of Emmett Till (1963) by Bob Dylan
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 awfully 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment