Only a Pawn in Their Game

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood
 A finger fired the trigger to his name
 A handle hid out in the dark
 A hand set the spark
 Two eyes took the aim
 Behind a man's brain
 But he can't be blamed
 He's only a pawn in their game
 A South politician preaches to the poor white man
 "You got more than the blacks, don't complain
 You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain
 And the Negro's name
 Is used, it is plain
 For the politician's gain
 As he rises to fame
 And the poor white remains
 On the caboose of the train
 But it ain't him to blame
 He's only a pawn in their game
 ♪
 The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
 And the marshals and cops get the same
 But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
 He's taught in his school
 From the start by the rule
 That the laws are with him
 To protect his white skin
 To keep up his hate
 So he never thinks straight
 'Bout the shape that he's in
 But it ain't him to blame
 He's only a pawn in their game
 
 From the poverty shacks he looks from the cracks to the tracks
 And the hoof beats pound in his brain
 And he's taught how to walk in a pack
 Shoot in the back
 With his fist in a clinch
 To hang and to lynch
 To hide 'neath the hood
 To kill with no pain
 Like a dog on a chain
 He ain't got no name
 But it ain't him to blame
 He's only a pawn in their game
 
 Today Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
 They lowered him down as a king
 But when the shadowy sun sets on the one that fired the gun
 You'll see by his grave
 On the stone that remains
 Carved next to his name
 His epitaph plain
 "Only a pawn in their game"