Young Emmet Till

Young Emmet was shot in the evening In the Tallahatchie River he sank He was beaten, swollen and eyeless Two white men were left on the bank With barbed wire they tied his black-skinned body To a 75-pound cotton-gin fan He must have sunk like stone to the bottom At 14 he was barely a man And I sing to you, young Emmet Till To the blood and the life that was spilled I know what they did and I am saddened as Hell There’s an evil in this world I just never will get They found his disfigured body They could tell it was him by a ring There was an open-casket funeral His mother was bent on that thing In Mississippi the Crows were all singing And you better take heed when their singing is on But Emmet was too young to get it He was as fresh as the daisies at dawn And I sing to you, young Emmet Till To the blood and the life that was spilled I know what they did and I am saddened as Hell There’s an evil in this world I just never will get --- Young Emmet Till - Johnny Red & the Prayerhouse People