Joan Baez - Birmingham Sunday

(See Lyrics Below) This music video is about the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham, which occurred in 1963 during the Civil Rights Movement.

Birmingham Sunday (Lyrics)

Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun,
And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one.
At an old Baptist church there was no need to run.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The clouds they were grey and the autumn winds blew,
And Denise McNair brought the number to two.
The falcon of death was a creature they knew,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom,
The church it was crowded, but no one could see
That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three.
Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
Young Carol Robertson entered the door
And the number her killers had given was four.
She asked for a blessing but asked for no more,
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground.
And people all over the earth turned around.
For no one recalled a more cowardly sound.
And the choirs kept singing of Freedom.
The men in the forest they once asked of me,
How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea.
And I asked them right back with a tear in my eye.
How many dark ships in the forest?
The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone.
And I can't do much more than to sing you a song.
I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong.
And the choirs keep singing of Freedom.

The church was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shutterworth. Tensions became high when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) became involved in a campaign to register African American to vote in Birmingham.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Church
• Bombing
• Civil
• Rights
• Voting
• Racism
• KKK
• MLK
• folk
• rock
• Spadecaller

[bubblinbrownsugar616]

WHAT THE HELL?!?! Did I just read this right:

Only a week before the bombing, Governor George Wallace told the New York Times that to stop integration Alabama needed a "few first class funerals"

DID I JUST READ THAT?!? UNBE-FUCKIN-LIEVABLE!!!

It's wrong to celebrate death but this asshole is the exception.

I'm glad that fucker is

dead today,

dead tomorrow,

and dead for FUCKIN EVER!!!!!

Absolutely pathetic.

[equineview]

It's so sad that fou girls died and that others were severly injured. Why are people so cruel.

[mello60ful]

@KennBurch White hatred started all this horrible problem so unless you are Viola Liuzzo descendents you have no right to judge but you are right about one thing the victims get to decide remember that "victims"

[mello60ful]

@KennBurch I am Black and unless you walk in my shoes in the turbulent 50's 60's where I personally seen the white only counters where white police kicked us as kids walking down the street Do something if you must to help the fight against hate but just being angry only mess with your body But you being white can go anywhere in this world with no problem just be one day as a black see what can happen

[KennBurch]

@mello60ful And, unless you are black(I, myself am white)you're not entitled to say that anyone should "stop being angry" about the violent, bitter-end tactics that white racists have used to hold onto power in this country-including the disgusting and totally unjustified questions about our current president's birth certificate.

The victims are the ones who get to decide when they need to "get over it"-not the race that benefited and still benefits from Jim Crow. OK?

[KennBurch]

@mello60ful, I'm not expressing hatred-I'm just rejecting the completely unjustified and insensitive sugarcoating of this terrorist act in your other post. The only way we can prevent this kind of atrocity from recurring is to tell the plain truth and keep alive the full memory of these things. And I'm sorry, but it wasn't God's will that these children were murdered. It was the actions of men, freely fighting an ugly war they knew was already loss.

[mello60ful]

@KennBurch and your hatred solves what believe me many years I felt like you I know now we have to stop being angry

[KennBurch]

@mello60ful This was NOT God's doing. And getting blown to bits in a church at or before the age of 14 is NOT being "called home". Perhaps you intended to comfort the survivors of these children, but it serves no purpose to try to soften the truth of what was done here.

[KennBurch]

This song should be recorded again by someone from a more recent generation-Tracy Chapman, perhaps, accompanied only by Wynton Marsalis on sax. 

[MSYNGWIE12]

@bubblinbrownsugar616 HEY BBSUGAR- I WATCHED A DOC MADE BY SPIKE LEE TODAY ABOUT THE BOMBING AND THERE WAS THAT PIECE OF HUMAN EXCREMENT SITTING IN HIS WHEELCHAIR. A BLACK MAN AT HIS SIDE- 'WHY HE IS MY BEST FRIEND, HE HAS BEEN FOR YEARS. " YOU FIGURE OUT THE B.S. I AM GLAD HE IS DEAD TOO EVEN THOUGH I FEEL AS A BUDDHIST IT IS WRONG OF ME TO HARBOR SUCH THOUGHTS- I HOPE AFTER MANY INCARNATIONS AS S DUNG BEETLE ETC OR SOME ABUSED PERSON HIS KARMA IS A LITTLE BETTER-

ZOE

[akaimurasaki1]

i listened to this in my english class and fell in love with it instantly. it shows that someone cared about showing what was happening and that it was a tragic thing but made it so beautiful

[15runawaylove]

Its so tragic that four amazingg young girls had to pay the price for three mens hate