America Goddam – Reimagined by Naimah Thomas and inspired by Nina Simone's Mississippi, written and preformed by the legendary Nina Simone. Simone coined this song as her first civil rights anthem in 1964. I was inspired to respond to the events that took place at the Capitol January 6, 2021, during a writing workshop.
America Goddam!
I mean every word of it
While America continues to make a show of it
With your skin, always devoid of melanin
America’s gotten bold with it
America’s losing control of it
Everybody knows it’s America’s undoing goddam
Can’t you see it
Can you feel it
It’s in the air…the virus is in the air
We can’t stand for your treachery under pressure
Under fear that the time is near, to reckon with stories told
Of Black bodies sold
Somebody say a prayer
America’s gotten bold with it
America’s losing control of it
Everybody knows it’s America’s undoing goddam
This revolution will be televised…it is being televised
The script is being written, yet
Change is on their tales
Eventually they will fail
Blackness coming across every path
America it’s your past…this is your past
Lord have mercy on this land of yours…never quite mine
You will get yours and I will get mine
I belong here…I make this country great…again and again
I belong here…because I don’t belong there
Lord have mercy on this land of yours…never quite mine
Don’t tell me to breath, when your knee is on me
I tell you, I know what is due…to me, cause you lied and said I was free
You keep saying go slow
You keep saying so so
You keep saying keep the hope
You keep saying stay afloat
You keep saying nope nope
Where are you going? Away?
Where are you going? Home?
Stand up, Stand Strong, Stay…
We continue to do our best…we continue to outperform the rest
Stand up, Stand Strong, Stay…
For everybody knows, America’s goddam
Voter lines, suppression crimes, are beyond what is divine.
YOU LIED…
The home of the free…you gotta be kidding me.
YOU LIED…
YOU LIED…
YOU LIED…means I die
I died because you lied
Blackness coming across every path
America it’s your past…this is your past
America goddamn
America goddamn
America goddamn
- Naimah Thomas 1/20/2021