What flag will fly for me
When I die?
What flag of red and white and blue,
Half-mast, against the sky?
I’m not the President,
Nor the Honorable So-and-So.
But only one of the
Scottsboro Boys
Doomed “by law” to go.
August 19th is the date.
Put it in your book.
The date that I must keep with death.
Would you like to come and look?
You will see a black boy die.
Would you like to come and cry?
Maybe tears politely shed
Help the dead.
Or better still, they may help you—
For if you let the “law” kill me,
Are you free?
August 19th is the date.
Clarence Norris is my name.
The sentence, against me,
Against you, the same.
August 19th is the date.
Thunder in the sky.
In Alabama
young black boy will die.
August 19th is the date.
Judges in high places
Still preserve their dignity
And dispose of cases.
August 19th is the date.
Rich people sit and fan
And sip cool drinks and do no work—
Yet they rule the land.
August 19th is the date.
The electric chair.
Swimmers on cool beaches
With their bodies bare.
August 19th is the date.
European tours.
Summer camps for the kids.
If they are yours.
Me, I never had no kids.
I never had no wife.
August 19th is the date.
To take my life.
August 19th is the date.
Will your church bells ring?
August 19th is the date.
Will the choir sing?
August 19th is the date.
Will the ball games stop?
August 19th is the date.
Will the jazz bands play?
August 19th is the date.
When I go away.
August 19th is the date.
Thunder in the sky.
August 19th is the date.
Scottsboro Boy must die.
August 19th is the date.
Judges in high places —
August 19th is the date—
Still dispose of cases.
August 19th is the date.
Rich people sit and fan.
August 19th is the date.
Who shall rule our land?
August 19th is the date.
Swimmers on cool beaches.
August 19th is the date.
World!
Stop all the leeches
That suck your life away and mine.
World!
stop all the leeches
That use their ower to strangle hope,
That make of the law a lyncher’s rope,
That drop their bombs on China and Spain,
That have no pity for hunger or pain,
That always, forever, close the door
Against the likes of me, the poor,
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
What flag will fly for me?
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
So deep my grave will be.
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
I’m not the honorable So-and-So.
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
Just a poor boy doomed to go.
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
Can you make death wait?
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
Will you let me die?
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
Can we make death wait?
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
Will you let me die?
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
AUGUST 19th IS THE DATE.
AUGUST 19th . . . AUGUST 19th . . .
AUGUST 19th . . . AUGUST 19th . . .
AUGUST 19th . . .