(SmithKaye)

I looked upon the book of life

Tracing the lines of face after face

Looking down at their naked feet

Bound in chains bound in chains

Chains of leather chains of gold

We knew it was wrong but we looked

away

And paraded them down the colonial

streets

And that's how they became enslaved



They came across on the great ships

Mothers separated from their babes

Husbands stood on the auction block

Bound in chains bound in chains

Chains of leather chains of gold

Men knew it was wrong but they looked

away

And led them to toil in fields of white

As they turned their necks to a bitter

landscape



Oh the people I hear them calling

Am I not a man and a brother

Am I not a woman and a sister



History sends us such strange

messengers

They come down through time

To embrace to enrage

And in their arms even stranger fruit

And they swing from the trees

With their vision in flames

Ropes of leather ropes of gold

Men knew it was wrong but they looked

away

Messengers swinging from twisted rope

As they turned their necks to a bitter

landscape



Oh the people I hear them calling

Am I not a man and a brother

Am I not a woman and a siste

r We will be heard we will be heard