Song Lyrics: Assassination and Murder Part 2

Medgar Evers was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi. He was assassinated by Byron Dela Beckwith on June 12, 1963. Coincidental with Black History Month and the following song, MSNBC news show host Joy Reid has a New York Times bestseller book right now. Her new book is titled Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America.

Only a Pawn in Their Game

Song by Bob Dylan in 1963

A bullet from the back of the bush took Medgar Evers’ 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’ve got more than the blacks, don’t complain

You’re better than them, you’ve been born with white skin,” they explain

And the Negro’s name is used it is plain for the politicians 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 down from the cracks to the tracks

and the hoofbeats 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 (the Ku Klux Klan wear hoods—my comment)

to kill with no pain, like a dog on a chain, he ain’t 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.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.