Only a Pawn in Their Game

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers's blood,

A finger fired the trigger to his name,

A handle hid out in the dark,

A hand set the spark,

Two eyes took the aim

Behind a man's brain.

But he can't be blamed,

He's only a pawn in their game.

A South politician preaches to the poor white man:

You got more than the blacks, don't complain!

You're better than them, you been born with white skin, they explain.

And the Negro's name

Is used, it is plain,

For the politician's gain,

As he rises to fame

And the poor white remains

On the caboose of the train.

But it ain't him to blame,

He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,

And the marshals and cops get the same.

But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.

He's taught in his school

From the start by the rule

That the laws are with him,

To protect his white skin,

To keep up his hate,

So he never thinks straight

'Bout the shape that he's in.

But it ain't him to blame,

He's only a pawn in their game.

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks

And the hoof-beats pound in his brain.

And he's taught how to walk in a pack,

Shoot in the back

With his fist in a clinch,

To hang and to lynch,

To hide 'neath a hood,

To kill with no pain.

Like a dog on a chain,

He ain't-a got no name.

But it ain't him to blame,

He's only a pawn in their game.

Today Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught.

They lowered him down as a king,

But, when the shadowy sun sets on the one

That fired the gun,

He'll see by his grave

On the stone that remains,

Carved next to his name,

His epitaph plain:

"Only a Pawn in Their Game."