Lyrics

verse 1:
I told my daughters, I never sought to be a martyr/
So I gotta play it smarter to ensure they got a father/
When pulled by that Charger, gotta keep my arms up/
In case cameras don’t start up on protective body armors/
The hatred they harbor leads to early departures/
Crowds in suits getting larger, tombstones marked up/
On edge like a barber, I was raised as a product/
Early days as a starter, switched homes like a squatter/
For me and my partners, the daylight was darker/
And against me, the odds were built up like tarter/
Uhhh..so I brushed it off a little harder/
And never really thought of just wading in the water/
I was waiting for part of the story to evolve from/
The larger distorted reports from the authors/
Who told me "regardless of them dreams, don't bother/
Less you want a hero's death, with ya life you don’t barter"/(uhn)

verse 2:
I done seen Black Mondays and Red Summers/
For fallen soldiers attacked from fed burners/
Burned crosses, lynchings and mass murders/
The Rev. George Lee, Crispus Attucks and Nat Turner/
We targets regardless and consequences the harshest/
With torches in darkness, from protests and marches/
From Vernon Dahmer to Willie Edwards/
To the Martins, the Malcoms, the Emmits, the Evers/
Trayvon, James Byrd, George and Arbery/
Fred Hampton, Huey Newton, they changed us largely/
Mr. Shakur, we miss you for sure/
Drinks we pour for Harry and Harriet Moore/
James Earl Chaney, Louis Allen, Herbert Lee/
Addie, Carole, Cynthia, Denise/
Chicago, Rosewood, Tulsa and Harlem/
Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington and Charleston/
Omaha, Watts, Birmingham, Alabama/
Newberry, Detroit, LA, Atlanta/
From race riots, to this day we face bias/
But even deaths of our heroes won’t make us stay quiet/

outro:
This song is dedicated….to all the martyrs and fallen soldiers
And to the greatest martyr of them all,
Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Don’t be a victim of them Black Codes y'all
Keep your head and your hands up

spoken word :
(A. Reese)
They taught me America was a city on a hill
A beacon of light for the world to feel
And between pledges, parades, and flag waiving,vI believed them
I heard “God bless America” as often as I heard my own name
So much that I started thinking God and country were one and the same
Apple pie and blue jeans, hot dogs and baseball
Home of the brave, justice for all
But my daddy told me it was a lie
He said the truth don’t wear red, white, and blue

(R. Olivia)
And that exceptionalism was a bedtime story told to keep children asleep
He read me verses from the Black Codes
Not the ones overlooked in schools, but the ones carved into housing deeds,
courtroom floors, and unwritten rules
I found out Christian Nationalism had nothing to do with Christ
More like Pharisees and Sadducees and ICE victim casualties
As I traveled on, they babbled on and banned books that tattled on
Justified genocide in their chapel songs
Sanitized history...repeated, evolved
Public hangings became police brutality hashtags
And Klan rallies became MAGA rallies
You see, ol' Jim Crow took off his robe, put on a badge, and started working overtime
Vagrancy laws written in redlines, stop-and-frisk, loans of sub-prime
Underfunded school zones
All modern echoes of the same Black Codes
Rebranded
With blue checks and star spangled “like” buttons
We scroll and scream, re-posting and repeating, but never uprooting
While the disease of racism outlives all of us and our algorithms
They say “focus on the future,” while they steadily erase the past
Burying the truth while building new laws
With blueprints they stole from yesterday’s wrongs
Oh but don’t speak on it, cause they gon' call you divisive
Like the truth is the problem
Like justice is the disruption
America ain’t healed—it’s hiding
Covering old scars with new slogans
Painting over the bloodstains with red, white, and delusion
America the Great…
…or maybe
the new Babylon
This ain’t liberty.
This is just another verse in a never-ending song
Another chapter in a long, unfinished book...titled:
Black Codes