In the state of Mississippi many years ago   A boy of 14 years got a taste of southern law   He saw his friend a hanging and his color was his crime   And the blood upon his jacket left a brand upon his mind         CHORUS:   Too many martyrs and too many dead   Too many lies too many empty words were said   Too many times for too many angry men   Oh let it never be again      His name was Medgar Evers and he walked his road alone   Like Emmett Till and thousands more whose names we'll never know   They tried to burn his home and they beat him to the ground   But deep inside they both knew what it took to bring him down      Chorus      The killer waited by his home hidden by the night   As Evers stepped out from his car into the rifle sight   he slowly squeezed the trigger, the bullet left his side   It struck the heart of every man when Evers fell and died.      Chorus      And they laid him in his grave while the bugle sounded clear   laid him in his grave when the victory was near   While we waited for the future for freedom through the land (*)   The country gained a killer and the country lost a man      Chorus