BALLAD OF JIMMY WILSON
Written by Ewan MacColl in the 1950s, based on an actual event in the U.S.

1. In Alabama, nineteen fifty-eight.
The cost of human life is very low
A man that's black is trampled down,
Just like men were a thousand years ago.

CHORUS: These are more enlightened days,
The cruel men and savage ways
We left long-ago.
Now every man may walk his road in peace for all are free,

2. Five thousand years ago, a million men
Were gathered into royal Egypt's hands,
Were bound together, forced to build
Pyramids of stone in desert sands, (cho.)

3. Mary's son walked through a land of woe,
Dreaming of the world as it could be,
The good and lawful men of Rome
Nailed him like a robber to the tree, (cho,)

4. In Britain just a hundred years ago,
The jails were full of poor and hungry men,
Diggers, Chartists, many more,
Fought and died and rose to fight again, (cho.)

5. Last year, a Negro stole a dollar bill.
The judge ho said, "We mustn't be severe,
"Instead of death we'll give him life
Imprisonment to show there's justice here,"(cho,)

6. And so throughout the ages we have seen
How progress marches over on its way,
No rack, no wheel, no Spanish boot
For Alabama's prisoners today, (cho,)

7. The plague still runs in nineteen-fifty eight,
Johannesburg to Notting Hill and back,
A plague of ignorance and hate,
Men walk in fear because their skin is black,

FINAL CHORUS-:
In these more enlightened days,
No room for all these savage ways,
Leave then, let them go.
Now every man should walk his road in peace
LET MEN BE FREE!

This song was written in protest against the sentencing to death of James Wilson, an Alabama Negro janitor who stole the equivalent of fourteen shillings. Upon world protest, this Alabama court reduced the sentence to life imprisonment.