BORN WITHOUT A MOTHER

born without a mother
no one to hold them close
five hundred years of labor
born just like a ghost

conceived inside a kidnap
born in ships at sea
who chose to be a slave
who chose this legacy

I come to you in darkness
Without a map to see
I come to you, America
I come to you and bleed

We weren’t born of the land
Not this land, not this place
We were born of slavery
We had lost the race
We had lost the race
They sang to us of Jesus
And of the master's grace

they had danced as brothers
they hunted and they fought
they had touched the night sky
they had loved and they had lost

but soon a way of living
was held captive by a gun
packed them in like cans of meat
sent off to the setting sun

how can something bad be fixed
five hundred years away
how can a crime burned into your eyes
ever be unmade

We weren’t born of the land
Not this land, not this place
We were born of slavery
We had lost the race
We had lost the race
They sang to us of Jesus
And of the master's grace

listen, little child
please listen if you can
you are a kind of pilgrim
upon a rock you stand

some things are far too broken
the neigborhood is ripped
some folks stuck inside their freedom
still slaves to master’s whip

the ancestors are living
inside the the great world tree
dreaming songs of Africa
dreaming they are free

We weren’t born of the land
Not this land, not this place
We were born of slavery
We had lost the race
We had lost the race
They sang to us of Jesus
And of the master's grace

born without a mother
no one to hold them close
five hundred years of labor
born just like a ghost

conceived inside a kidnap
born in ships at sea
who chose to be a slave
who chose this legacy

I come to you in darkness
Without a map to see
I come to you, America
I come to you and bleed

We weren’t born of the land
Not this land, not this place
We were born of slavery
We had lost the race
We had lost the race
It was the master’s whip
That put us in our place

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