Blessed Are Those Who Struggle

Blessed are those who struggle
 Oppression is worse than the grave
 Better to die for a noble cause
 than to live and die a slave
 Blessed are those who courted death
 Who offered their lives to give
 Who dared to rebel, rather than serve
 to die so that we might live
 Blessed are those who took up arms
 and dared to face our foes
 Nat Turner, Vesey, Gariel, Chinque
 To mention a few names we know
 Blessed are the memories of those
 who were there at the Harper's Ferry Raid
 Strong were their hearts, noble their cause
 and great was the price they paid
 Blessed are the voices of those who stood up
 and cried out, Let us be free!
 Douglas and Garvey and Sojourner Truth
 Dubois and Drew All
 Blessed are the giants that we have loved
 and lost to the bullet's sting
 like Malcolm and Medgar and the Panthers who fell
 and Martin Luther King
 And blessed are the bodies of those
 who were hung from the limbs of the sycamore tree
 Who found end to their hope at the end of a rope
 'cause they dared to attempt to be free
 Up through the years we've continued this fight
 our liberty to attain
 And though we have faced insurmountable odds
 yet the will to resist remains
 Blessed are the spirits of those who have died
 in the prisons all over this land
 who committed one sin, they stood up like men
 and got iced for just being a man
 Blessed all you who will join with us now
 in this struggle of life and death
 so that freedom and peace will be more than a word
 to the offspring that we have left