Slavery was the beginning. Jim Crow was the sequel.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
We know of a Freedom Rider. Got beaten up and jailed.
Luckily his comrades had enough for bail.
Then on to the lunch counter, to protest silently.
Then came the water hoses, and the dogs biting violently.
Some days it seemed too hard to fight.
The colored bathrooms are in worse shape than the whites’.
This can be tolerated. We’ve had it since birth.
But what can be said when the Klan bombs a church?
Colored girl went to college. She was the first.
All she wants is an education. But the Governor fights for continued segregation.
Counter-protests and riots, lynchings and fires.
The path to equality is long; such a simple desire.
Let’s change the laws. Vote and act.
Hard to do when you have to pay a poll tax.
We have leaders to fight until segregation is a forgotten thing.
But setbacks occur; they shot JFK and Martin Luther King.
It takes more, but I wish all it took was a little love.
So let us march united, until we are stopped and beaten with billy clubs.
Hope can overcome all our fears. We persevere despite bloody tears.
And our children have it better in the coming years.
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