Story Behind the Song
Please pass this song to everyone you know. This song tells the story of Mumia Abu Jamal, a journalist and outspoken critic of police brutality in Philadelphia who was framed for murdering a policeman. He had no record. Four witnesses who saw the real murderer run were coerced into changing their testimony. There were 29 constitutional violations in his trial. Amnesty International and numerous foreign governments have spoken out on Mumia's behalf. Demonstrations are held in 33 countries. Federal law states that a judge does not have to look at new evidence when a person is on death row. And the real shooter has confessed. And so far, judges have refused to give Mumia a new trial. For more information, go to www.mumia.org and www.zmag.org.
Lyrics
Lynching Back East
Rick Hart
Hey, man, there’s a lynching going on back East. In the City of Brotherly Love.
They wouldn’t let him speak. They held him. Framed him. And if that wasn’t enough,
they fed him death row fear for 19 years while truth points back the other way.
Now they’re trying to fry him quick as they can before the light shines on what they say.
He had no record. He was down with a bullet from the dead policeman’s gun.
A few tampered witnesses later said they never saw the real shooter run.
And so the lawyers and detectives and the hangin’ judge cooked the evidence til it was
done.
What’s that tell you ‘bout the long arm of the law when they don’t want the guilty one?
It was a lynching case in old Alabam’ that caused the Feds to first intervene.
Now, Federal law gives every state a rope, and man don’t their hands look clean.
He only spoke from his heart, from his neighborhood, to a city of brutal cops.
Of course they ain’t all bad, but what makes it sad is that the city never made it
stop.
And then the FBI began to spy on the 15 year old kid.
And as he got older, the police got bolder, but the manchild never hid.
...guitar solo...
It was a lynching case in old Alabam’ that caused the Feds to first intervene.
Now, federal law gives every state a rope, and man don’t their hands look clean.
I know there’s cops only want the real shooter who took one of their own,
and think any man who speaks his mind might be learned from or left alone.
But you might say there might be more deep inside his file, but you got to admit,
kill him or ‘quit, a man first needs a fair trial.
Now, at what point do you really know when our leaders go too far?
And if you don’t know exactly where that is, how in the hell do you know where you are?
'Cause now the real cop shooter has come to confess, but the judge don’t have to see.
So how can we say the USA is the land of the free?
(over B-3 solo) How can we say, now...Give a key to Mumia Abu Jamal...Land of the free,
now...Mumia Abu Jamal...You got Arnold Beverly...Uh hmm mmm mmm...and how ‘bout all the others innocent...............What are you thinking?
(p) (c) 2001 Rick Hart
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