Black Lives Matter

Music/lyrics Nobuko Miyamoto

Dirty secrets lie in the shadows

Waiting for the light

Talking stories round kitchen table

Clear as black and white

How many lives have been taken?

How many names we don’t know

How many locked up in cages

With dreams nowhere to go…

He’s my son – he’s my brother

He’s my husband – he’s my lover

she’s my sister – she’s my mother

she’s my friend – she’s my other

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER…TO ME

Since slavery and lynching

Since don’t have a Chinaman’s chance

Since cowboys told the Indians

Your land is my land

This system gives permission

To the one with the biggest gun

But remember David and Goliath

Little David won

In the moonlight or the sun – Baltimore or Ferguson

In your home or in the hood – Compton or Hollywood

In the alley or your car – Charleston or New York

In the subway or the street – Brooklyn-or Boyle Heights….

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER…TO ME

He’s my son – he’s my brother

He’s my husband – he’s my lover

she’s my sister – she’s my mother

she’s my friend – she’s my other   

(REPEAT)

In the moonlight or the sun – Baltimore or Ferguson

In your home or the hood  – in Compton or Hollywood

In the alley or your car – in Charleston or New York

In the subway or the street – Brooklyn-or Boyle Heights….

Everybody knows about Baltimore and Ferguson

Everybody know about Charleston

And everybody knows about

Mississippi Goddam!    

Everybody knows about Emmett Till and Oscar Grant

George Floyd, I can’t breathe, and Sandra Bland

But how many lives have been taken?

How many names we don’t know?

How many locked in cages?

With dreams nowhere to go

Nowhere to go….

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER…TO ME