My student A. asked about the meaning of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the wind" song. Honestly, I could not give a good answer so I decided to listen more carefully to Bob Dylan. I learned the song captures the 1960s civil rights movement.
I planned this lesson as part of my own thinking about folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's role in civil rights for African Americans. Listen to Bob Dylan's song "The Death of Emmett Till", available on NPR. Compare and contrast the song to Margalit Fox's NYTimes article about Willie Louis, a witness of the court case. How does the song capture the chagrin of the trial's acquittal of the murders?
Listen to the song and fill in the blanks with the proper tense of the following verbs:
-->
I planned this lesson as part of my own thinking about folk singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's role in civil rights for African Americans. Listen to Bob Dylan's song "The Death of Emmett Till", available on NPR. Compare and contrast the song to Margalit Fox's NYTimes article about Willie Louis, a witness of the court case. How does the song capture the chagrin of the trial's acquittal of the murders?
Listen to the song and fill in the blanks with the proper tense of the following verbs:
-->
bear
beat
commit
confess
|
drag
fill
find
give
|
kill
live
live
remember
|
remind
repeat
roll
speak
|
step
stop
throw
torture
|
The Death
Of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
’Twas down in
Mississippi not so long ago
When a young boy from Chicago town __________through a Southern door
This boy’s dreadful tragedy I can still __________well
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till
When a young boy from Chicago town __________through a Southern door
This boy’s dreadful tragedy I can still __________well
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till
Some men they __________him
to a barn and there they __________him up
They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what
They __________him and did some things too evil to __________
There were screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds
out on the street
They said they had a reason, but I can’t remember what
They __________him and did some things too evil to __________
There were screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds
out on the street
Then they __________his
body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they __________him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain
The reason that they __________him there, and I’m sure it ain’t no lie
Was just for the fun of killin’ him and to watch him slowly die
And they __________him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain
The reason that they __________him there, and I’m sure it ain’t no lie
Was just for the fun of killin’ him and to watch him slowly die
And then to __________the
United States of yelling for a trial
Two brothers they __________that they had killed poor Emmett Till
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers __________this
awful crime
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody there seemed to mind
Two brothers they __________that they had killed poor Emmett Till
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers __________this
awful crime
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody there seemed to mind
I saw the morning
papers but I could not __________to see
The smiling brothers walkin’ down the courthouse stairs
For the jury __________them innocent and the brothers they went free
While Emmett’s body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea
The smiling brothers walkin’ down the courthouse stairs
For the jury __________them innocent and the brothers they went free
While Emmett’s body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea
If you can’t __________out
against this kind of thing, a crime that’s so unjust
Your eyes are __________with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood
it must refuse to flow
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!
Your eyes are __________with dead men’s dirt, your mind is filled with dust
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood
it must refuse to flow
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!
This song is just a
reminder to __________your fellow man
That this kind of thing still __________today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could __________
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to __________
That this kind of thing still __________today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could __________
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to __________