It was down in Mississippi a few short years ago
When a young man from a Chicago town stepped through a southern door
Now this man's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well
For the colour of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till

Some men, they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up
They said that they had a reason but I can't remember what
They tortured him and did some things too evil to read
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing on the street

And thеy rolled his body down a gulf of blood red rain
And they thrеw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain
The reason that they killed him there, I'm sure it ain't no lie
Was just for the fun of killing him and to watch him slowly die

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial
The two brothers, they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till
But on the jury were the men who helped commit this crime
And so this trial was a mockery that no one seemed to mind

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walking down the courthouse stairs
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers, they went free
While Emmett's body floats the foam of the Jim Crow southern sea

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, it's a crime that's so unjust
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt and your mind is filled with dust
Your arms and legs must be shackled and chained and your blood refused to flow
For if you let this human race fall down so God awful low
This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in the ghost robed Ku Klux Klan
But if all of us folks think alike, if we gave all we could give
We could make this world of ours a greater place to live
This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man