Story Behind The Song

read Ralph Waldo Ellison's Juneteenth which was the date in 1865 of the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln. While in the South driving through Arkansas I saw a sign that read "You'll be the same ol' sinner til Jesus saves you, yes you will" and walking beside this sign was a chain gang of black prisoners. I thought "what sins happened to these black men" in the larger picture of the novel it was made clear that the question was within the American justice system 'who'se the Sinner, who'se the Saint?"

Song Description

reflections of an Black American remembering the early 1950's.