THE WALLS STAND ON AND ON

Down in the river near the cotton mill
Mississippi Delta and a boy named Till
The water flows muddy
Tallahatchie River

Fire in the canebrake
Crickets in the trees
Floating down the river
May he rest in peace
He was a fine boy
Do tell his soul's delivered
The Mama cried out
The Mama wailed long and loud

Illinois Central brought Bobo down
Citified child from Chicago town
Mama said “Son, it's different
Down in Mississippi”
Bobo stepped in Bryant's Grocery store
Pretty woman standin’ on the splintered floor
She was the owner's wife
“Hello young man what can I do ya for?”

Fatback, Lucky Strikes, chew and rum
“Howdy Mrs. Bryant can I buy some gum
I got two pennies
My eyes are on that Black Jack bin”
He sashayed to the counter
Reached into a can
Handed her the money but he grazed her hand
She said “it just ain't right for a colored
To touch a white girl's skin”

The Mama cried out
The Mama wailed long and loud
The paint is cracked and the windows gone
The roof caved in
But the walls stand on and on

Mr. Bryant pounded on Bobo's door
Grabbed him by the hair and tossed him on the floor
Of his pickup truck on Dark Fear Road
In a southern moon
Tied him like a farm hog shot him in the head
Wrapped an old gin fan around his neck
Then threw him in the Tallahatchie River

It only took an hour for the twelve of them
Whiter than white all of them men
To declare that Mr. Bryant was fully innocent
Pine box bouncing on the northbound train
Mama took Bobo to the church on State
She opened up the casket
So the whole damn world could see

The Mama cried out
The Mama wailed long and loud
The paint is cracked and the windows gone
The roof caved in
But the walls stand on and on

Now the old store is an empty shell
Shrouded in vines like a ghostly hell
The curbside sign with bullet holes
Marks the Freedom Trail
Fire in the canebrake
Crickets in the trees
Floating down the river
May he rest in peace
Emmett Till may you rest in peace

The Mama cried out
The Mama wailed long and loud
The paint is cracked and the windows gone
The roof caved in
But the walls stand on and on
The paint is cracked and the windows gone
The roof caved in
But the walls stand on and on

In 1967, Bobby Gentry, a little known country singer, released Ode to Billy Joe. Unexpectedly, the song became wildly popular, knocking All You Need Is Love out of the # 1 spot for six weeks and the Tallahatchie Bridge became a household word. The song’s story is fictional but the bridge and the muddy river that flows under it is real. Graham and I saw Rosanne Cash perform the song in Napa in February 2019. She was fascinated with the historical significance of the Mississippi Delta region. Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge; Rosanne’s father prowled the region playing music and feeding his addictions; Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for a blues guitar and was buried in nearby Greenwood; and a stone’s throw from the Tallahatchie Bridge is the dilapidated shell of Bryant’s Grocery in Money, Mississippi where Emmett Till addressed a white woman, paid two cents for some candy and lost his life.

I returned home with these stories swirling through my brain. Coincidentally, The NY Times had just released a story and short documentary on the subject of Emmett Till’s murder and the struggle of the South to reconcile and acknowledge its history of racial violence and oppression. See Remembering Emmett Till: The Legacy of a Lynching. The confluence of Rosanne’s concert and these stories plunged me into Emmett’s world, the courage of his mother Mamie, the trial of the white men who killed Emmett, and the white jury who acquitted them. Bryant’s Grocery building is privately owned. It has been abandoned for decades and appears ready to collapse at any moment. The old walls of the store have survived the winds of Katrina and decades of neglect. The Walls Stand On and On is a reference to the walls of the old store, those walls that seem to say “never forget what happened here.” Emmett Till died in 1955. George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubery and Breonna Taylor died in 2020. This is not the only song about Emmett Till; there are many. Following a performance of this song, a person thanked me for bringing the song and the story of Emmett Till so vividly to her attention because she had been unaware. I then realized how important these songs are to conveying messages of social injustice and the need for change. This song is not pretty; it will make you mad. If it does, then I have succeeded.