The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #157220   Message #3709638
Posted By: GUEST,Fred McCormick
18-May-15 - 06:51 AM
Thread Name: Anti-racism, anti-prejudice songs
Subject: Lyr Add: ANGER IN THE LAND (Don West)
I'd just pressed send button when I remembered Anger in the Land, by Don West. As an anti-racist elegy, I think it deserves a place along Strange Fruit.

O, there's grieving in the plum-grove
And there's weeping in the weeds,
There is sorrow in the shanty
Where a broken body bleeds.

For there's been another lynching
And another grain of sand
Swells the mountain of resentment—
O, there's anger in the land!

And a woman broods in silence
Close beside an open door
Flung across the flimsy door-step
Lies a corpse upon the floor!

You'll not ask me why I'm silent;
Thus the woman spoke to me.
Her two eyes blazed hot with anger
And her throat throbbed agony.

Let the wind go crying yonder
In the tree-tops by the spring,
Let its voice be soft and feeling
Like it was a living thing.

Once my heart could cry in sorrow
Now it lies there in the floor
In the ashes by the hearth-stone—
They can't hurt it anymore!

Did you ever see a lynching,
Ever see a frenzied mob
Mill around a swaying body
When it's done the hellish job?

O, there's grieving in the plum-grove
And there's sobbing in the sands,
There is sorrow in the shanties—
And there's anger in the land!