Down from heaven
Out of the sky
Families huddled
Grown men cried
Towns were flooded
Farmlands drowned
Then came the surging
Mississippi flood tide

The deluge flowed
Down the Mississip
A tragic, sordid story
White folk got
What help was had
Black folk; just more misery

Forced at gunpoint
To work the docks
No pay coming
No false hopes
Starving and sick
Herded like cattle
Constricted
Bedraggled

So with a gunny sack
And the clothes on their back
Some headed north
Along the railroad track
Farms washed away
Homes destroyed
Fled for St Louis
Chicago and Detroit

Escaping Jim Crow’s
Living hell
To like the crowded strip
Of Bronzeville
Jobs and slightly
Less oppression there
But soon the Great Depression
More despair