This is my redeveloped version of Amazing Grace by Edwin Othello Excell, John Newton and John P. Rees.The following verses are aimed at changing the traditional American focus of self-centered justification by grace to marginalized freedom through justice. There are also sub themes of America’s history of oppression and the center’s current state of inaction.
“Simple Justice”
Lady Justice how sweet her song
that saved the oppressed beneath
What once was lost now is crowned
here the blind teach man to see
‘Twas solidarity that showed my heart true fear,
and my fears Christ alone did relieve,
how safe distanced grace does appear
when it is unity that he did preach
Christ came so we may live life abundantly
and by our Lady this hope is secured
For by her all are set free
as long as life endures
Through glass ceilings, stereotypes and prejudice
Justice hath broken through,
‘twas she who gave hospitality
and grace that kept beneath
Yes when the march and riot did avail
and the President issued his decree
Privilege wrote that margin prevailed
A counterfeit of history
Truth shall soon be unknown
and sons will abstain to decline
the privilege which has only grown
in this generation’s time
For here we have been ten thousand days
dark oppression still lurks as the night
and we’ve no more civil right
than when we first began
November 23, 2014 at 10:11 pm
The original lyrics of “Amazing Grace” can be found here: http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Amazing_Grace/