This is about Medgar Evers.
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood.
He finger fired the trigger to his knee.
He handled it out in the dark.
He hand made the spark through ice-cold steam.
Behind a man's brain,
but he ain't a flame.
He's only a pawn in their game.
I'll raise it up and start over.
Sing three sentences.
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood.
He finger fired the trigger to his knee.
He
handled it out in the dark.
He hand made the spark through ice-cold steam.
Behind a man's brain,
but he ain't a flame.
He's only a pawn in their game.
The South politician,
he preaches to the poor white man.
You're not more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them.
You've been born with white skin in his brain.
And the Negro's name is used in his brain
for the politician's gain as he rises to fame.
And the poor white remains on the caboose of the train.
Sinking in, if you blame.
He's only a pawn in their game.
The deputy sheriffs,
the soldiers,
the governors get paid.
And the cops and marshals get the same.
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all.
Like a tool,
he's taught in his school.
From the start by the rule
that the law's out with him.
They pretend his white skin can keep up his hate.
So he never thinks fate back to shape that he's in.
So it ain't him, but it ain't him.
He's only a pawn in their game.
From poverty's shacks,
he looks from the cracks to the tracks.
And the hoof beats pound in his brain.
And he's taught how to walk in a pack.
Shoes in the back, wears a vest and a clinch.
To hang and to lynch with his head beneath the hood.
To kill with no cane, like a dog on a chain.
He ain't got no name,
but it ain't him to blame.
He's only a pawn in their game.
The dame Edgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught.
They'll lower him down as a king.
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one that fired the gun,
he'll see by his grave on the stone that remains,
carved next to his name,
his epitaph plain.
Only a pawn in their game.
Game.
Game.