Every spoken promise has failed
I’m not going to test my faith anymore
Because it only makes my soul weep
I cannot tell myself never again
I cannot tell you to trust me again
Because I know that words are cheap
I can only hope that what is strong
Finds its way through my heart
Before I open my mouth to speak
I can only hope that what I swallow
Only gives me the power to be true
And not the temptation to be weak

For it is written to grant forgiveness
No matter difference or malfeasance
To never speak ill of one another
Or deny each other our subsistence

All men are created equal parchment
Holding these truths to be self-evident
The oppression of the Kings colony
Patriotic revolutionary

Migrating minds irrational to sane
Reserved safe harbor but to others pain
Land of self-righteousness and victory
Exceptionalism and destiny

Ships billowing with holds of chattel slaves
Fractional human beings ordained graves
Until brother killed brother for freedom
Assassination emancipation

Forty acres and a mule recompense
Jim Crow separate but equal pretense
Lynch mob street justice terrorism rope
Vietnam veteran unable to cope

James Earl Ray bullet Memphis balcony
Bull Connor another dead Kennedy
Black power fist raised Mexico City
Malcolm X panther Muhammed Ali

White supremacy freedom riders dead
Mississippi white cross on fire dread
Rodney King can’t we just get along plea
Is skin color all we will ever see?

Should they get over their Mockingbird past
Should they burn the city or should they fast?
Oh Lord should we turn a cheek in silence
Or fight with Kings dream of non-violence?