They often wonder, can’t we go back to the good ole days,
when protestors, were like Martin Luther King Jr,
Peaceful
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
We answer,
Have you forgotten; he was murdered as well?
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming
Hoses! Dogs! Batons beat faces and heads causing blood to spill!
Whose broad stipes and bright stars through the perilous fight
Jail cells moaned for relief, as they were filled past capacity with black men in three-piece suits
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming
Bridges blocked on a bloody Sunday
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air
A church firebombed,
Flames dispatching four innocent little black girls off to see Heaven’s gates
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there
Volunteer voter registrars
Shot in their car,
As peaceful protesters were found dead on the side of a dimly lit road
Oh, say does that Star Bangled Banner yet wave
Young black men sent to fight and die in war,
Yet here, sharing lunch counters with whites, was against the law
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave
Were those, really,
The good ole days?