Scottsboro Sunset

By Marcus B. Christian

The Southern Eagle churns the air, and screams as she sweeps the sky,

And seven black boys in their cells have been condemned to die.

Gapes wide the fierce electric chair, and their strangled voices call,

And seven boys are fighting hard with their backs against the wall.

Weak Justice -- palsied and crooked of sight, speaks in a wheening voice

"Death by the chair until you are dead," while Hatred and Fear rejoice

The red sun sinks in the blood-red west, and red is the evening sky,

But innocent blood must gutter the street before red hatreds die.

The Southern Eagle flirts the sky and screams in the azure blue

Some ruthless hand touched your eaglets white, but these are you nestlings, too.

"Hideous"  you call them? Who brought them forth? Who Nurtured them? Who alone?

Who drowned their souls in the tenements, and exploited them flesh and bones?

Who spawned them -- then, closed the door of hope? Who did it? Please tell me who?

If some ruthless hand touched your eaglets white -- are not these your nestlings, too?

O, God of old -- God of the weak -- who seeth the sparrow's fall:

Seeth Thou seven black boys with their backs against the wall?

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