My Name is Emmett Till - Emmylou Harris

I was born a black boy

My name is Emmett Till

I walked this earth for 14 years

Then one night I was killed

For speaking to a woman

Whose skin was white as dough

That’s a sin in Mississippi

But how was I to know?

I’d come down from Chicago

To visit with my kin

Up there I was a cheeky kid

I guess I always been

But the harm they put upon me

Was too hard for what I’d done

For I was just a black boy

I never hurt no one

They took me from my uncle’s house

Mose Wright was his name

He’d later stand and without hesitation

Point the blame

At the ones who beat and cut me

And shot me with a gun

And threw me in the river

Like I was trash when they were done

I was sent back to my mother

At least what was left of me

She kept my casket open

For the whole wide world to see

The awful desecration

And the evidence of hate

You could not recognize me

The mutilation was so great

There came a cry for justice

To be finally fulfilled

All because of me, a black boy

My name is Emmett Till

Oh, but I’d have rather lived

'Til I was too old to die young

Not miss all I left behind

And all that might have come

The summer clouds above my head

The grass beneath my feet

The warmth of a good woman

Her kisses soft and sweet

Perhaps to be a father

With a black boy of my own

Watch him grow into a kinder world

Than I had known

Where no child would be murdered

For the color of his skin

And love would be the only thing

Inside the hearts of men

They say the horror of that night

Is haunting Heaven still

Where I am one more black boy

My name is Emmett Till