Fixing America In 500 Words Or Less


Chapter 28

BROTHER MARTIN
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       Freedom, freedom, freedom, over me. . .

       Was the darkest of many desperate days in nineteen sixty-eight
       Before a nation lost her soul in a hail of bullets at Kent State
       Like our best friend, in your prime, they had to go and take you down
       And I wonder how things would be today if you were still around?

              Would mainstream radio still be just as one-sided?
              And would a nation called “united” be so divided?
              Would there be a nightmare every day somewhere in Iraq?
              And would soldiers have their own nightmare who somehow made it back?
              Would backlash from a clueless Congress still be barely startin'
              If you were here with us today, brother Martin?

              Would children still be so afraid to go outside and play?
              As their future is discarded, would we still look the other way?
              Would a president still say, “if you're not with us, you're against us”?
              As veterans sittin' in wheelchairs are called “traitors” when they protest?
              Would World War Three be just a stone's throw away from startin'
              If you were here with us today, brother Martin?

       Now though we were born with a different shade of skin
       Freedom rings within my soul, just like we're next of kin
       And before I'll be their slave, I'll be buried in my grave
       And gone on to our home. . . free at last *


* Dedicated to Coretta Scott King and Yolanda Denise King; for Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King and Bernice Albertine King.  Intro and final two lines from the slave anthem Oh Freedom; traditional.  "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down their life for their friends." - Jesus of Nazareth, founder of Human and Civil Rights





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