I was 14 when they gunned me down

I was with my friends just joking around

They dared so I couldn't back down

And yet  I did the unthinkable

I whistled at a woman, a white woman allegedly

So the men took me

to the barn where they beat me senseless, gouged my eyes out

and shot me one time in the head

I was found 3 days later

floating down the Mississippi river dead.

They gunned me down in 1955

I am only the first of many.

Who did not survive.

 

I was 17 when they gunned me down

Still in high school when he shot me

Stand Your Ground Law was the reason he got off not guilty

Alleged racism is the only reason I got noticed

And they all accused me for my tragedy.

I got shot for walking down a street

They exploited my name and blasted my photos

But in the end all my family wanted was some peace

All the riots and protests they held didn't bring it.

It just drew on everyone's misery.

I didn't even get a chance to graduate yet

when he gunned me down and shot me one time in my chest.

 

I was 18 when he gunned me down

Barely out of high school

My shooting sparked riots and protest.

I opened eyes for millions

4 bullets to the arm, 1 to the eye and another 1 through the top of my head

They put riot gear on the people who killed me and

nothing on the people who fought for me

I sparked a change in a generation of the sightless.

My chance to speak was taken from me

But luckily I have a city to do it for me

 

If they gunned me down today

what would the media portray of me

If the shooter came into the classroom held a gun to my head

and the last thing that will ever come to your mind when you think of me is, boom

making me another victim of the group of kids who didn't get a chance to live

and were gunned down for actions they never carried out

If they gunned me down today as I speak

As the media spoke millions of slurs and slander of me

I would go peacefully, silently

because at least I know that my young but powerful voice

had a chance to live, regardless of what the media thinks.