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40
RETRIBUTION—
God counts the Negro's tears.
I caution you, be careful, then,
Judges, jurors, brutes and men,
Be careful and assuage his fears
And protect him through the years.
Before God's throne the pearls you'll lay,
He'll count them on the Judgment Day.
And he who tally keeps will hear
The echoes of the deadening years.
God counts the Negro's tears.
I caution you, be careful, then,
Judges, jurors, brutes and men,
Be careful and assuage his fears
And protect him through the years.
Before God's throne the pearls you'll lay,
He'll count them on the Judgment Day.
And he who tally keeps will hear
The echoes of the deadening years.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
When slavery's horrors reached midnight,
All consciousness had taken flight,
Human brutality had no fear,
Cruelty stood out as human peer.
God called Abe Lincoln upon the stage
To show the depth of this outrage.
He stood amidst their threats and jeers,
And poured plain justice in their ears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
When slavery's horrors reached midnight,
All consciousness had taken flight,
Human brutality had no fear,
Cruelty stood out as human peer.
God called Abe Lincoln upon the stage
To show the depth of this outrage.
He stood amidst their threats and jeers,
And poured plain justice in their ears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
The Ku Klux Klan took charge of state.
Again it was the Negro's fate.
This low black spot of great despair
Made ancient cruelties lift their hair.
This reached the lowest stage for years,
With cruelty beyond compare,
Till God, with pestilent disease,
Scattered the Ku Klux Klan like wintry leaves.
God counts the Negro's tears.
The Ku Klux Klan took charge of state.
Again it was the Negro's fate.
This low black spot of great despair
Made ancient cruelties lift their hair.
This reached the lowest stage for years,
With cruelty beyond compare,
Till God, with pestilent disease,
Scattered the Ku Klux Klan like wintry leaves.
God counts the Negro's tears.
41
God counts the Negro's tears.
Ye lynchers with your bloodiest page
That shocked the Russians' cruel outrage,
You stand on cruelty's page as peers,
Your civilization is veneered.
And worst of all since God's creation,
The lowest depths of degradation,
Fished from the foulest beast, my dear,
With lynchers' crime will not compare.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Ye lynchers with your bloodiest page
That shocked the Russians' cruel outrage,
You stand on cruelty's page as peers,
Your civilization is veneered.
And worst of all since God's creation,
The lowest depths of degradation,
Fished from the foulest beast, my dear,
With lynchers' crime will not compare.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Five hundred strong, the low mob rage,
Takes one poor Negro off the stage.
Innocence lynched 'midst shouts and cheers.
The helpless community stands by in fear.
With one cyclone God sweeps a town,
Auto and train wrecks mow men down.
The flu comes along, makes millions sneeze,
The war brings nations to their knees.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Five hundred strong, the low mob rage,
Takes one poor Negro off the stage.
Innocence lynched 'midst shouts and cheers.
The helpless community stands by in fear.
With one cyclone God sweeps a town,
Auto and train wrecks mow men down.
The flu comes along, makes millions sneeze,
The war brings nations to their knees.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
O white man, have you any heart?
And did your senses ever start?
Have you no scruples, can you hear
The wails and cries and yet forbear?
I caution you, this lynching bee
And Ku Klux Klan you'll surely see.
I caution you, be careful, then,
Judges, jurors, brutes and men.
God counts the Negro's tears.
O white man, have you any heart?
And did your senses ever start?
Have you no scruples, can you hear
The wails and cries and yet forbear?
I caution you, this lynching bee
And Ku Klux Klan you'll surely see.
I caution you, be careful, then,
Judges, jurors, brutes and men.
God counts the Negro's tears.
42
God counts the Negro's tears.
For many years he cried for aid,
America's conscience all seemed stayed.
His punishment has vanished fear,
These race riots reveal the bier.
In East St. Louis some truths were told,
Washington and Chicago increased the fold,
Then Omaha applied the spear,
And Tulsa quieted all their jeers.
God counts the Negro's tears.
For many years he cried for aid,
America's conscience all seemed stayed.
His punishment has vanished fear,
These race riots reveal the bier.
In East St. Louis some truths were told,
Washington and Chicago increased the fold,
Then Omaha applied the spear,
And Tulsa quieted all their jeers.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God's rules of fifty centuries ago
Are still in vogue, are still aglow.
When a man sows in the natural field,
A harvest it is expected to yield.
The process may be somewhat slow,
But you are to reap just what you sow.
They used to lynch their poor black brother,
But now they're lynching one another.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God's rules of fifty centuries ago
Are still in vogue, are still aglow.
When a man sows in the natural field,
A harvest it is expected to yield.
The process may be somewhat slow,
But you are to reap just what you sow.
They used to lynch their poor black brother,
But now they're lynching one another.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
I caution you, just watch the tide
On which the Exodus doth ride
Into a purer, higher sphere
Where men are men and brutes are jeered.
The fields are growing up in weeds,
Revealing all past wicked deeds.
The Negro left his southern fear
All wrapped up in his vanished gear.
God counts the Negro's tears.
I caution you, just watch the tide
On which the Exodus doth ride
Into a purer, higher sphere
Where men are men and brutes are jeered.
The fields are growing up in weeds,
Revealing all past wicked deeds.
The Negro left his southern fear
All wrapped up in his vanished gear.
God counts the Negro's tears.
43
God counts the Negro's tears.
At home he has no chance at all,
But sometimes otherwise he's called.
With Roosevelt on San Juan Hill,
He took that Fort 'midst shouts and thrills.
And on that noted Hindenburg line
He joined the French in the nick of time,
And picked up the motto “They shall not pass,”
And mowed down Germans until the last.
God counts the Negro's tears.
At home he has no chance at all,
But sometimes otherwise he's called.
With Roosevelt on San Juan Hill,
He took that Fort 'midst shouts and thrills.
And on that noted Hindenburg line
He joined the French in the nick of time,
And picked up the motto “They shall not pass,”
And mowed down Germans until the last.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Dixon and Mencken, like heartless beasts,
In search of literary feasts,
Are using vitriol's pen undilute
To paint the Negro as a brute;
But the interracial group at work
No God-sent duty dares to shirk,
Are striving to place upon the mart
That beneath that black skin dwells a heart.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Dixon and Mencken, like heartless beasts,
In search of literary feasts,
Are using vitriol's pen undilute
To paint the Negro as a brute;
But the interracial group at work
No God-sent duty dares to shirk,
Are striving to place upon the mart
That beneath that black skin dwells a heart.
God counts the Negro's tears.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Right now in the midst of all this drought
The good white women of the South
Are sending appeals to men of state,
That lynching they must exterminate.
And when a bunch of women vow,
Mr. Weak-kneed man can only bow.
I see that lynching is doomed to fall,
By the women's handwriting on the wall.
God counts the Negro's tears.
Right now in the midst of all this drought
The good white women of the South
Are sending appeals to men of state,
That lynching they must exterminate.
And when a bunch of women vow,
Mr. Weak-kneed man can only bow.
I see that lynching is doomed to fall,
By the women's handwriting on the wall.
God counts the Negro's tears.
44
God counts the Negro's tears.
This country cannot see its flaws.
The white men make and break the laws.
The Negro waits for revolution,
But God's on high—watch retribution.
Did you catch the trend of the last election,
Have you given it a serious reflection?
The “solid South” was torn asunder,
The Democratic Party scattered like plunder.
God counts the Negro's tears.
This country cannot see its flaws.
The white men make and break the laws.
The Negro waits for revolution,
But God's on high—watch retribution.
Did you catch the trend of the last election,
Have you given it a serious reflection?
The “solid South” was torn asunder,
The Democratic Party scattered like plunder.
God counts the Negro's tears.
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