Lyrics

They tell the story wrong,Like I was just some poor imposition,I took each step in opposition,like I chose to play this part,As if your hate ain’t played it smart.I was six.Not ten,not grown. the venom in your mouths was shown.You laced your fear with frothy spite,dragged me through your holy night.You dressed me up in shining white,marched me straight through terror’s bite.A little girl,my skin a flame,You spit,then tried to call it shame.You call me brave.You call me strong.where were you, when the walk went wrong,it was cold and clear,William Frantz School,thick with fear. Four Marshals flanked me,not with pride,But as a shield cause truth can’t hide.Not teachers friends.no hand to hold,Just a mob of Godly hearts gone cold.They screamed a slur with foaming lips,Clutching Bibles in white grips.You waved your signs in poison ink,While I was just learning how to think.You painted dolls with noose and gun,I didn’t yet know what the word had meant,But I knew the rage in what you sent.The rotten breath, the cursed and proud,Still echoes through your churches loud.You cursed me down the schoolhouse stair,Your Bible thumping empty air.You prayed for me to burn in hell,And called that love You wear it well.Let’s not pretend it was a school,You feared the crumbling of your rule.You feared a child with skin like mine Would stain your desk,defy your line.You feared the threat of books I read,Because your power lies in what we’re fed.You yanked your children from their seats, Rather than let them face defeat.Barbara Henry,one lone soul,Taught me while the silence stole the rest of them,turned their backs in swift retreat.I walked through fire while you held tight to ghosts who taught you Black ain’t right.I walked with grace,a sacred spark,While you screamed blood into the dark.You say I walked so others run,But I walked under a noonday gun.It wasn’t hope that cleared that road,It was threats I never showed.I was six,made into proof,of liberty’s cracked and splintered truth.While grown men wailed and wept with spite,Afraid a Black girl might read right.You taught your sons that I was sin,Taught your daughters: don’t let me in.You wrote your rage in rules and stone,Then tried to call it schooling home.But I am ink that stains your page.The test you flunked.The buried rage.I am the scar your flag can’t hide.The lie you breathe. truth denied.So speak my name,but not in jest.Say it like weight on your chest.Not just for me,but for the dream.You butchered with your righteous scream.You love to quote me now I’m tame,Now that time burned off your shame.But would you walk beside me still,If there were no guards and the hate stood still?Teach your children what I was:Not your pet. Not your applause.Not a face in frozen grace, But the match that torched your altar place. Say my name with the blood still fresh.Say it like a trial.A debt.a flesh.Say it like it splits the room.Ruby Bridges.She didn’t walk alone that day.She dragged your conscience all the way.