Sundown Town

Lyrics

[Intro] By some estimates, as many as ten thousand sundown towns have sprung up across the country by 1970. Some with a warning to African-Americans not to... Let the sun go down on you, was an unspoken rule that spread by reputation Others where the warning was explicitly spelled out... [Verse 1] My daddy nose wider than a Houston highway All the women in my fam pledged AKA All men in my fam pledged K-A-Psi I'm the first to enroll at PWI Yeah I'm light, but melanin strong denna bitch I don't burn, I just tan, I peep the gold-brown skin Wish I could go back to Ghana without a hitch But slave ships cut ties I don't know how to mend I would follow the bread trail of black bodies But thosе crumbs were laid four hundred yеars ago I got a record, I am just another black body That the system tried to swallow up years ago I was nineteen when it all went down I'm a criminal, my momma was so astound But when you raise me in a city where there's nothing to find You leave all these kids of color to find hobbies in crime And I just followed the line, I see the locs and the slimes On my shady five shit but I still focused on rhymes We can't go to the mall, set trips cause stabs Unless you wit an adult, that shit just isn't for grabs Nothing safe to fade, not even fucking arcades Hit that shit for birthday and someone flashed a .38 They pulled a gun on my homie just right after I left Sometimes this feels like Grand Auto Theft Shit [Chorus] One of my uncles disappeared In a sundown town That's why I feel some type of way When the sun go down That's why I feel some type of way When the sun go down Got a target on my body 'Cause my skin so brown These republicans They tryna make me rot in the pound Can't trust white people When I see 'em around That's why I feel some type of way When the sun go down Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown [Verse 2] Go and peep the constitution, I'm three fifths of a human And they claim it's changed but man, I see they sin Made us addicted to this crack, told us to wash it with gin Set us up to shoot each other, cops don't even come in We don't get first response, we don't get one at all Silent treatment unless you can go and dribble a ball 'Less you can pull up from three but don't get down on your knee They'll take away your contract and let you sleep in the street They say my lips too thick, they overdrawing they shit They say my hair too kinked but all they ends be split They call me a monkey but they be spraying they tans Claim that they got a culture but they don't season they pans They wanna be vultures, they picking bones in the sand They write history books so they gon' say we was friends They killed the black panthers, called them the terrorist clan That's why I got up on this beat and went Assata again, nigga [Chorus] One of my uncles disappeared In a sundown town That's why I feel some type of way When the sun go down That's why I feel some type of way When the sun go down I got a target on my body 'Cause my skin so brown These republicans They tryna make me rot in the pound Can't trust white people When I see 'em around That's why I feel some type of way When the sun go down Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown [Outro: Mother Viola Fletcher & CENSORED dialogue] I am one hundred and seven years old and have never been, seen justice (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) I pray that one day I will (Whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) I have been blessed with a long life and have seen the best and the worst of this country (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) I think about the terror, horror (This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) Inflicted upon black people in this country every day (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) And I ask survivors and descendants to be given the chance to seek justice (Whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) For seventy years the city of Tulsa and this chambers of commerce told us the massacre didn't happen (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) Like we didn't see it with our own eyes (This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) We lost everything that day: Our homes, our churches (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) Our newspapers, our theaters, our lives (Whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) Greenwood represented all the best of what was possible for black people in America (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) No one cared about us for almost a hundred years (This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) We and our history have been forgotten and washed away (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown) This congress must recognize us and our history (Whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) For black America, for the white Americans, and for all Americans (Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown Sun go down, sundown town This whole fucking country is a sundown Whole fucking country is a sundown This whole fucking country is a sundown) Thank you