Waiting for the Bus

My name is Gary Tyler, Louisiana-born

Shadow of the poplar tree on fields all ripe with corn

Sixteen years I counted on the rising of the sun

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home

Of all the Disunited States divided black and white

Louisiana taught me how to think and how to fight

Sixty of us kids aboard the number 91

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home

Bus was barely moving we were set upon and stopped

Watched 200 white boys throwing bottles, cans and rocks

Trapped and scared together there was nowhere we could run

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home

Boy outside the bus, an automatic in his hand

We heard a single shot and then we all just hit the ground

I never pulled a trigger and I never held a gun

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home

White boy lay there bleeding cops they searched the bus

Never found a thing to say that it was one of us

Took us down the station they were beating us for fun

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home

Gun produced from nowhere pinned the crime on me

A lynchmob for a jury meant they'd never set me free

Thirty years in prison for a crime I haven't done

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home

Waiting here the world has turned a thousand times or more

Stranded like the man who never knew they'd stopped the war

Waiting for the pardon but the pardon never comes

I'm just waiting for the bus to take me home.