About Richard Hamersma


 




The Ballad of Anne Frank and Emmett Till

Richard Hamersma

Lyric only

 


Anne and Emmett were much too young
To have died in such evil ways
Their young lives robbed by wicked men
Too awful for any words to convey

Malice was in the hearts of the haters
Compassion was absent in their souls
With no concern for human suffering
Their conscience was dark as coal

Both in that attic and that bedroom
Horror and terror stalked their souls
And neither Anne nor Emmett
Got the chance to live and grow old

Anne did nothing to cause any trouble
She had no chance to escape her plight
From those who had no religious tolerance
And couldn’t tell wrong from right

She was forced to hid in an attic
Didn’t dare to walk in the light of day
She was betrayed and forced into hard labor
Just 15 when typhus took her life away

How could people gas innocent people
Then pull out their teeth for any gold
Six million killed in the holocaust
By men whose souls were frozen cold

Anne and Emmett were much too young
To have died in such evil ways
Their young live robbed by wicked men
Too awful for any words to convey

Emmett was just 14 and cheerful
He wore a hat over a smiling face
He never thought just whistling at someone
He would be killed because of his race

He was kidnapped at 2am in the morning
His cousin saw it though his sleepy eyes
They thought Emmett might be beaten
But that he would come back to them alive

Told to dress quickly without warning
He didn’t scream or shed any tears
Bobo the beloved relative from the North
Was to suffer the worst of Southern fears

Anne and Emmett can still teach us
That villains of virtue remain here today
Their young voices may have been silenced
But their memories will never fade away

We shouldn’t need pictures of Emmett’s battered face
Or see the piled bones of Anne’s forebears
To know that killing and hatred
Should never happen like that anywhere

If there’s an answer blowin’ in the wind
May it be guided by a kind hand from above
To send us a jet stream to blow us
A constant flow of warmth and love
A constant flow of warm


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