CHORUS (Alexandrah)
What’s dead to you is pushing through

VERSE 1 (Swamburger)
I was born King, pushing hip in 29, son of a preacher mind with the same name as he until at 39 he legally dropped it and changed it to honor a German protestant. I used to sing choir, went to college at 15, skipping 9th and 12th grade with big dreams of sociology and systematic theology… I’ma be like pops, (a pastor.) After 1954 I’m just that… 25 in Alabama facing lack of unity in tune with the omnipresent, I’m used to being “Jim Crow-ed” though. Relate to that! Where I stay there’s racial segregation. The measurement of a man is 98cents. Freedom and a home to write is $28.12 but I’m a long way from Walden I admit.

CHORUS (Alexandrah)
What’s dead to you is pushing through

VERSE 2 (Swamburger)
I played the game of victim too long to be a silent opposition to authority’s position. Listen! One day, while beginning a book I had a vision that would wake me in the middle of typing. Fast forward to the signing of that very book… (Harlem 58’) take a closer look. I was stabbed in the chest with an envelope opener, (black woman from Georgia named Izola.) Now, rewind back to that typing process, my vision of a promise-land in spite of death… people gathered speaking rather bold saying I was out of touch… “Bus boycotts are old.” Civil rights’ not a fight for the now even now in the present I’m learning how. Maybe I should just rest, slitter in my chest, pushing the envelope is not for the best.

CHORUS (Alexandrah)
What’s dead to you is pushing through

VERSE 3 (Swamburger)
No! I’ma wake from this… escape death while I gotta boat to fix. Reaper’s knocking but you can’t stop when a will to make a way is waiting over the mountain. So I wrote more books, led a people to action, marched on Washington with peace and passion, left the movement of the south in the north with Jackson, opposed war in Vietnam back to back then. Won’t sleep till the dream is alive… hold more rallies, get the poor organized. I believe in a date with death but if I gotta go now no fear is left… left away from stress. 39yrs to a King ain’t a thing what’s left… an absolute? Nah. Another living being wants to see if I’m bulletproof.

CHORUS (Alexandrah)
What’s dead to you is pushing through