I looked upon the book of life

Tracing the lines of face after face

Looking down at their naked feet

Bound in chains bound in chains

Chains of leather chains of gold

We knew it was wrong but we looked away

And paraded them down the colonial streets

And that's how they became enslaved.

They came across on the great ships

Mothers separated from their babes

Husbands stood on the auction block

Bound in chains bound in chains

Chains of leather chains of gold

Men knew it was wrong but they looked away

And led them to toil in fields of white

As they turned their necks to a bitter landscape.

Oh the people I hear them calling

Am I not a man and a brother

Am I not a woman and a sister.

History sends us such strange messengers

They come down through time

To embrace to enrage

And in their arms even stranger fruit

And they swing from the trees

With their vision in flames

Ropes of leather ropes of gold

Men knew it was wrong but they looked away

Messengers swinging from twisted rope

As they turned their necks to a bitter landscape.

Oh the people I hear them calling

Am I not a man and a brother

Am I not a woman and a sister

We will be heard we will be heard.