The Death Of Emmett Till (Live)

[00:10.74]The Death of Emmett Till

[00:26.28]'Twas down in Mississippi

[00:31.42]Not so long ago

[00:35.67]When a young boy from Chicago Town

[00:40.46]Walk in a southern door

[00:45.71]This boy's fateful tragedy

[00:49.92]We should all remember well

[00:54.07]The color of his skin was black

[00:58.47]And his name was Emmett Till

[01:03.31]Some men they dragged him to a barn

[01:08.56]And there they beat him up

[01:12.27]They said they had a reason

[01:16.70]But I disremember what

[01:21.77]They tortured him and did some things

[01:26.51]Too evil to repeat

[01:30.77]There was screamin' sounds inside the barn

[01:35.36]There was laughin' sound out on the street

[01:42.13]They dragged his body to a gulch

[01:46.70]Amidst a bloodred rain

[01:51.31]And they through him in the waters wide

[01:56.06]To sease his screaming pain

[02:00.45]The reason that they killed him there

[02:05.01]And I'm sure it ain't no lie

[02:09.81]He was a blackskin boy

[02:14.03]So he was born to die

[02:20.84]And so to stop these United States

[02:25.38]Of yelling for a trial

[02:29.90]Two brothers they confessed that they

[02:34.47]Killed poor Emmett Till

[02:38.68]But on the jury there were men

[02:42.95]Who helped the brother commit this awful crime

[02:48.00]And so this trial was a mockery

[02:52.49]But nobody seemed to mind

[02:59.30]I saw the morning paper

[03:04.65]But I could not bear

[03:08.28]To see the brothers smiling

[03:12.75]On that courthouse stairs

[03:17.21]For the jury found them innocent

[03:21.74]And the brothers they went free

[03:26.28]Whilt Emmett's body floats the foam

[03:30.78]Of a Jim Crow southern sea

[03:37.52]If you can't speak out against this kind of thing

[03:41.96]A crime that's so unjust

[03:45.93]Your eyes are filled with deadman's dirt

[03:51.04]Your mind is filled with dust

[03:55.38]Your arms and legs

[03:57.37]They must be in shackles and chains

[03:59.83]And your blood it must cease to flow

[04:04.30]For you'd let this human race

[04:08.71]Sick so God awful low

[04:15.43]This song is just a reminder

[04:19.92]To tell my fellow man

[04:24.39]That this kind of thing still lives today

[04:33.45]In that ghost robed Klu Klux Klan

[04:37.33]But if we all then think alike

[04:42.37]If we give all we can give

[05:07.75]We'd make this Great land of ours

[05:16.72]An even greater place to live