Crazy in Alabama

I heard Odessa's mind was sick
 That she was crazier than hell
 The police caught her turning tricks
 Down at the Blue and Gray motel
 Odessa was the neighbor's maid
 She had ten mouths at home to feed
 They bussed her kids to Birmingham
 And put her in the county jail
 Nobody seemed to give a damn
 They say a white man posted bail
 My dad said not to breathe a word
 I told my brother all I heard
 And the train of change
 Was coming fast to my hometown
 We had the choice to climb on board
 Or get run down
 It was crazy there
 Were grown men fights
 Over segregation and civil rights
 Martin Luther King and the KKK
 George C. Wallace and LBJ
 And when the National Guard came in
 I thought the world was gonna end
 It was crazy in Alabama
 Down at the corner Dairy Dip
 They sold soft ice cream for a dime
 White people ordered from the front
 The side was for the colored line
 We all were told they had their place
 Because they were a different race
 We spent hot summer afternoons
 At the public swimming pool
 Where the privileged and the few
 Played on their island of cool blue
 Brown children
 Watched outside the fence
 It never made one lick of sense
 But the train of change
 Was coming fast to my hometown
 We had the choice to climb on board
 Or get run down
 My momma yelled child get inside
 Drew the drapes and locked the doors
 We watched the marchers passing by
 Felt the rumble heard the roar
 They all held hands they sang and wept
 And freedom rang in every step
 Cause the train of change
 Was marching through my hometown
 We had the choice to climb on board
 Or get run down