Birmingham Jail

Send me a letter

And send it by mail.

Send it in care of

The Birmingham jail.

Down in Alabama,

They arrested us.

Took us bodily

Off the freedom bus.

Was running crazy,

Tripped over a log.

I was escaping

A big vicious dog.

In Mississippi

The waters arose.

We were swept over

By a big fire hose.

The sky is burning,

Here there is shooting,

And nobody yet

Has defined looting.

Send me a letter

And send it by mail.

Send it in care of

American jail.




Illustration: file photo, Birmingham, Alabama 1963
Poem was written on the occasion of the Freedom Buses of 1961