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THE ROSEWOOD MASSACRE
Little town there in the back woods
in this Northern Florida soil
former slaves in peace there lived
employed in honest toil
Peaceful people come to live
back in the early teens
free at last to carry on
and build upon their dreams
Each one had a garden plot
and a little shanty home
for slavery now abolished
gave them hope to carry on
A loving folk in cotton dress
living off the land
building hope for future things
back in the sugar sand
But murder came to visit them
they were massacred in their sleep
children and old women too
and would make the black man weep
All because a whte man beat his wife
and she all bruised with lying tongue
blamed it on a black man
who was ignorant and young
And on that fateful silent night
when the moon was shining high
the white man came with torch and plots
for to make the black man die
And so the viliganties came
with bayonet and gun
and mowed them down where they sat
and killed them every one
Little children in their beds
dreaming childhood dreams there in the night
and when the lawmen found them there next day
they cried, at this awful sight
So in the woods the people ran
to hide neath bush and tree
but white men chased them with pointed hoods
and it did no good to flee
The mournful ones, the few that lived
cried gently in the night
to find their loved one all had gone
their souls had taken flight
Now the cries of all the innocent
voices crying out for sweet revenge
and all the woods are crying now
for it's left a bloody tinge
Palmeettos now have swept away
the lonely paths of time
and foot prints long have gone
but black men still gather in the night
to weep in mournful song
And still sometimes late at night
deep in those piney woods
neath pine needles slim and long
you may still hear the sound of running feet
and hurtful screams
when night time winds doth moan
