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Country Song About Racism


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I got an email from a person looking for the title and artist of a song. It sounds familiar to me, but I can't for the life of me remember the specifics. Does this ring any bells for anybody?

"I was looking for a very specific sad, poignant song about racism, but haven’t been able to find it at all, and I think it might have been banned from radio. If I describe it, I was hoping you might know the title and artist, or could post it, and someone online might know.

I believe the song came out around 1993 -1995, and I think it was by a well known male country artist or group, but it seemed to have only been played on the radio station once or twice, and then got pulled.

The song was about a white boy and a black boy that were friends. They were walking together and then the black boy saw his house burning, or crosses in his yard burning (something like that, I don’t remember exactly). Anyway the black boy ran to help his family, and the white boy said he would run home and get his Dad to come help them put out the fire. The white boy runs home and sees his father taking off a white hood and maybe washing blood from his hands or had blood on his shirt. The white boy can’t believe his Dad did it and runs away to go back and help his black friend and the white boy’s father calls after him. The white boy runs into the burning house to help his black friend and they both end up dying. When the fire was put out, the white boy’s father couldn’t tell which boy was his son because they were both burned so badly."

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could it be this one? :)

Cherokee Highway ~ Western Flyer (1995)

PRELUDE (Jesus Loves The Little Children)

Mississippi, in '61, they

Watched his daddy die

Guided by the light of a burning cross

That lit the Delta sky

Kevin and Willie, 10 years old,

They were best of friends

The only way you could tell 'em apart

Was the color of their skin

"C'mon Willie!," Kevin screamed,

"Let's get out of here!" Willie's numb,

Can't even run, frozen there with fear

So Kevin takes off through the woods

Yelling "I'll be back for you!"

Running fast, out of breath, can't stop and rest

His daddy would know what to do

But rushing through the door

He sees the eyes of a man

His daddy's washing the blood out of a sheet

But it won't come off his hands

CHORUS:

And the blood still runs down Cherokee Highway

A senseless river filled with all they've shed

Just two dark sides to Cherokee Highway

But black or white, the blood still runs red

Now the fire is at the fuse

In a town that just won't learn

Word is out, "make the white man pay,"

Gonna watch his farm house burn

Midnight, the flames begin,

Kevin's daddy's the first to rise

So he grabs his gun and he grabs his wife,

But Kevin's still inside

From the shadows comes a boy with darker skin

Though they killed his daddy, gonna save his friend,

He runs through the door as the house falls in

CHORUS

Staning in the ashes, he sees what hate really is

Two little bodies, both burned black,

Can't tell which child is his

CHORUS

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And now for something completely different:

Reuben James

In my song you live again

And the phrase that I rhyme

Are just a footstep out of time

From the time when I knew you

Reuben james

Reuben james, all the folks around hadison county

Cussed your name

Youre just a no-count, sharecropping colored man

Youd steal anything you can

And everybody laid the blame on reuben james

Reuben james, for you still walk

Over fields of my mind

Faded shirt, weathered brow

Colored hands upon the plow

Loved you then and I love you now

Reuben james

For a grave

The gossiper of hadison county died with chide

Although your skin was black

You were the one that didnt turn your back

On the hungry white child with no name

Reuben james, reuben james

With your mind on the soul

And a bottle in your right hand

You said turn the other cheek

For theres a better world awaiting for the meek

In my mind these words remain from reuben james

Reuben james one dark cloudy day

They brought you from the field

And to your lonely crambox

Came just a preacher

Me and the rain

Just to sing one last refrain to reuben james

(Performed by Kenny Rogers.) :beatnik:

A "Guy Gabaldon" kind of song.

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