Birmingham Sunday
(September 15, 1963)

Bigoted racists only knew the hate
Bigoted racists only showed the rage
Bigoted racists wanted black folks encaged
Bigoted racists chose to use dynamite
Bigoted racist used dynamite for fright
Bigoted racists knew what blacks were fighting for was right
The day was set, the time declared
The children and their parents at the 16th Street Baptist Church weren’t prepared
These four little girls lives would not be spared
Four little girls
Who went to Sunday School that day
And never came back home to play
But left instead
Their blood upon the wall
With splattered flesh
And bloodied Sunday dresses
Would redden sanctified walls with their blood
On this Birmingham-on-Sunday wall
Four tiny girls
Who left their blood upon that wall,
In little graves today await
The dynamite that might ignite
The city of Birmingham would finally fight
To end the hate and light the light
Of opening the door for what is right
To implement the Golden Rule
That this nation’s would ignore the fools
Who use racism as a tool
Four little girls
Might be awakened someday soon
By songs upon the breeze
As yet unfelt among Alabama’s blossoming magnolia trees
Winds of change for these four little girls
Didn’t give their lives in vain and America’s finally cleans it’s racist stain
And finally eases Black America’s pain

Joseph Hall

When I was growing up
There was myth that said
If you want hide the truth from blacks
Simply put it in plain sight
Hide it in a book
Those words seemed asinine
Didn’t those who made up this line
Understand that gaining knowledge is in a black persons bloodline
You see in a Blackman’s past a book strengthen a chained man’s spine
Our ancestors would give their lives to read freedoms line
Hide in it a book you say
You mean hiding it the light of day
Oh no, no way
Not today
Because truth hidden away must be revealed eventually in the light of day
That book you thought you hide away
Well I’m reading it today

Joseph Hall