**When The Blues Is Dues- In Jim Crow Times – 50 Years Later It’s Still Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”

**When The Blues Is Dues- In Jim Crow Times – 50 Years Later It’s Still Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”

… his hitchhiked ride, a good guy, a guy in pick-up truck, an almost new 1961 Ford model, who picked him up after dark just south of Richmond, left him off right off Highway 61, just outside of town, Clarksburg, early that next blazing hot afternoon after that good guy had tooled that pick-up about fourteen hours straight with only a couple of pits stops. As he ambled toward the center of town figuring to get a little lunch at the bus stop before heading out on the bus to head west some before he picked up the hitchhike trail again he noticed, he clearly noticed that he was in the colored section of town, or what seemed like it. All kinds of shacks, run-down and worst, junk cars, or worst, the latest, maybe about a 1949 Hudson from what he could see, litters of little black children playing in front of decayed yards filled with debris, and a feel of poverty, not ground-down, groveling poverty but just the poverty of the poor, the poor who have been poor for a few generations and don’t know any other existence. As he passed the rows of shacks some residents gave him short looks, not hostile but more like“whitey, what are you doing here in this section of town, you must be a stranger.” Others just went about their poking around business.

These stares (or indifferences) kept up until he hit the edge of the colored section, or what seemed to be the edge, when he thirsty, thirsty as hell, by this point stopped in a store, one of those old time country-type stores, a store out of some William Faulkner Mississippi novel, he thought, filled with colored folks, and one white man behind the counter. He approached the counter, asked for a Pepsi, cold, ice cold, and large. The white man behind the counter (who turned out to be the owner, and who he would hear of a couple of years later in some televised news report as the leader of that town’s White Citizens Council) said this -“boy, where do you think you are, Boston?”, this here is a nigra store and no whites are served here. By rights I should have you thrown out of town but since you are a stranger I will just tell that if you want a Pepsi, or any damn drink, you will have to go to my store over in town a couple of miles from here up this same road, right next to the bus station which I hope you plan to be using.” He left without a word, but still thirsty as hell.

After walking what seemed like an eternity, now with white stares coming from all kinds of shacks, run-down and worst, junk cars, or worst, the latest, maybe about a 1949 Hudson from what he could see, litters of little white children playing in front of decayed yards filled with debris, and a feel of poverty, not ground-down, groveling poverty but just the poverty of the poor, the poor who have been poor for a few generations and don’t know any other existence, he reached the downtown bus station, and Mister’s grocery store next door. He went into the store, now filled with white folks, and with a white man behind the counter, approached the counter and asked for a Pepsi, cold, ice cold, and large. In reply the white man said the following-“We don’t take with white folks trading at the colored store so if you want a Pepsi, or any damn drink, you’ll have to get it at the bus station-on your way out of town.” He left, again without a word.

He entered the small bus station, stepped up to the clerk’s counter, bought a ticket to New Orleans, and then asked for a drink of water. The clerk pointed behind him and he went and got that precious drink of water, a drink at the “whites only”drinking fountain not the “colored only” one that his new found instinct told him that he should not use…

…and thus james crow in the flesh. And Mississippi goddam too.


Mississippi Goddam Lyrics
(1963) Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we

Picket lines
School boycotts
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

That's it for now! see ya' later