April 20, Verdict  (tune: John Brown’s Body) (1)

April 20, Verdict  (tune: John Brown’s Body) (1)

 

George Floyd’s body lies a’moldering in the grave,

Where it shall rest forever in this land of “free and brave.”

Accountability is building like a mighty wave.

Let’s keep it rolling on.

 

Glory, glory, hallelujah!  (insert as the spirit moves)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Let’s keep it rolling on.

 

This wasn’t justice but it was accountability

For one case of the thousands of police brutality.

And we fear George Floyd will not be the last fatality.

So we must all march on.

 

Accountability must grow to justice for us all.

“Do not let my case be the last,” we hear Floyd’s spirit call.

Though bigotry is fortified, keep battering the wall.

Until we make it fall.

 

A chauvinistic killer squeezed Floyd’s spirit out of him.

We can’t be satisfied to lay him down and sing a hymn.

We must stand up to bigotry until its requiem.

We must keep marching on.

 

Could stars above in heaven now be looking kindly down,

When joined too early by young men whose skin is black or brown?

It happens every day in any city, any town,

They’re joining old John Brown.

 

Glory, glory, hallelujah!….

 

  • “John Brown’s Body,” was a marching song in the Union Army during the Civil War. The original tune grew out of old camp meeting songs, early in the 18th  Later, Julia Ward Howe wrote the verses we know as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

John Brown was an abolitionist who attacked and briefly took over an armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October, 1859.  He was captured, tried and hanged in December, 1859.  The commander of the militia that captured John Brown was Colonel Robert E. Lee of the United States Army.