The Rise of the Black Messiah

They called you "The Rise of the Black Messiah"

Like so many boys before ya

And there will be more, more to follow

Threatening and hard to swallow

I'm sitting underneath that hanging tree

Just me and the ghost of the KKK

Poor man's gallows in the middle of the woods

The saddest tree that ever stood

My friend I heard you tell of slavery's end

But have you heard of mass incarceration?

That ol' Jim Crow, he just keeps getting born

With a new hanging rope for the black man's scourge

Ol' Man River, what do you know

'Bout a plantation they call Angola?

Devil spawned a prison there

The saddest farm that ever lived

Now your great-granddaddy, he worked that land

With shackles on his feet and on his hands

He built them levees, he chopped that cane

He died in the mud in his chains

Now you stand where he once stood

Shackles on you all the same

But he's gonna rise

He's gonna rise

And all them lynchers are gonna be damned

When outta that mud walks a brand new man

They called you "The Rise of the Black Messiah"

Said they'd do any damn thing they could to keep ya—

You and your brothers from spreading the word

The gospel of freedom and the black man's worth

Forty years in solitary

Consider the man that they just can't bury

I got this letter in my hands

Saying tell this story when you can

And he's gonna rise

Yeah, he's gonna rise

And all them lynchers are gonna be damned

When outta that hole walks a brand new man