The Death Of Emmett Till (Live)

[00:12.99]The Death of Emmett Till

[00:21.12]'Twas down in Mississippi

[00:34.46]Not so long ago

[00:57.81]When a young boy from Chicago Town

[01:08.25]Walk in a southern door

[01:12.47]This boy's fateful tragedy

[01:16.89]We should all remember well

[01:21.32]The color of his skin was black

[01:25.37]And his name was Emmett Till

[01:32.18]Some men they dragged him to a barn

[01:36.15]And there they beat him up

[01:40.50]They said they had a reason

[01:44.67]But I disremember what

[01:48.81]They tortured him and did some things

[01:53.15]Too evil to repeat

[01:57.27]There was screamin' sounds inside the barn

[02:01.62]There was laughin' sound out on the street

[02:08.15]They dragged his body to a gulch

[02:12.18]Amidst a bloodred rain

[02:16.56]And they through him in the waters wide

[02:20.93]To sease his screaming pain

[02:25.11]The reason that they killed him there

[02:29.40]And I'm sure it ain't no lie

[02:34.02]He was a blackskin boy

[02:36.71]So he was born to die

[02:44.40]And so to stop these United States

[02:48.68]Of yelling for a trial

[02:52.65]Two brothers they confessed that they

[02:57.56]Killed poor Emmett Till

[03:00.93]But on the jury there were men

[03:05.25]Who helped the brother commit this awful crime

[03:09.68]And so this trial was a mockery

[03:13.53]But nobody seemed to mind

[03:20.12]I saw the morning paper

[03:25.56]But I could not bear

[03:28.62]To see the brothers smiling

[03:33.33]On that courthouse stairs

[03:36.81]For the jury found them innocent

[03:40.97]And the brothers they went free

[03:45.27]Whilt Emmett's body floats the foam

[03:50.18]Of a Jim Crow southern sea

[03:55.80]If you can't speak out against this kind of thing

[04:00.12]A crime that's so unjust

[04:04.11]Your eyes are filled with deadman's dirt

[04:08.55]Your mind is filled with dust

[04:12.36]Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains

[04:16.62]And your blood it must cease to flow

[04:20.69]For you'd let this human race

[04:25.43]Sick so God-awful low

[04:31.25]This song is just a reminder

[04:35.25]To tell my fellow man

[04:39.30]That this kind of thing still lives today

[04:43.47]In that ghost-robed Klu Klux Klan

[04:47.58]But if we all then think alike

[04:51.72]If we give all we can give

[04:56.12]We'd make this Great land of ours

[05:22.25]An even greater place to live