This one's called "Emmett Till" By the way the melody is ... i stole the melody from Len Chandler ... 'Twas down in Mississippi, not so long ago When a young boy from Chicago town walked in a southern door This boy's fateful tragedy you should all remember well The color of his skin was black an' his name was Emmett Till. Some men they dragged him to a barn an' there they beat him up They said they had a reason but i disremember what They tortured him an' did some things too evil to repeat There were screamin' sounds inside the barn, there was laughin' sounds out on the street. Then they rode his body down a gulf amidst a blood red rain An' they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screamin' pain The reason that they killed him there, an' i'm sure it ain't no lie 'Cause he was born a black skin boy, he was born to die. An' then to stop the united states of yellin' for a trial Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till But on the jury they were men who had helped the brothers commit this awful crime An' so this trial was a mockery but nobody seemed to mind. I saw the mornin' papers but i could not bear To see the smilin' brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs For the jury found them innocent an' 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 deadman's clay an' your hears must be filled with dust Your arms an' legs they must be in shackles an' chains an' your blood it must cease to flow For you to let our human race fall down so godawful low. This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow men That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Klu Klux Klan But if all us folks that thinks alike, if we'd give all we could give We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.