Download “I Was There.mp3”
(Want the sheet music?)
A note: Rosa Parks was not the first person to be arrested for refusing to relinquish a seat on a segregated bus. In fact, nine months earlier in Montgomery, a 15-year-old girl named Claudette Colvin had done the very same thing. But while the NAACP very much wanted to bring anti-discrimination cases to trial, Ms. Colvin was deemed an “unsuitable symbol for their cause” when it was discovered she was pregnant (by a much older married man). There had actually been quite a few potential cases where the NAACP was afraid that the particular protester in question was “less than exemplary,” and might not stand up under cross-examination.
(This is the historical thought that engendered the lyric, “‘Cause God knows/It wouldn’t have/Started with me.”)
MAN 1:
I was there
On the bus
When it happened.
In a way,
It was all
‘Cause of me.
There were three men
Who were standin’ . . .
At the time,
We believed
We were better.
At the time,
We demanded
They move.
And three of them did,
But a woman just slid
To the window . . .
Thank God
No one knows
It was me!
One of three
Who were there
At a crossroads in time
To trigger events
That were waitin’ to be . . .
MAN 2:
I was there
On the bus
When it happened.
An’ I still
Can’t believe
I was there.
There were three men
Who had boarded . . .
An’ they said
That they wanted
Our seats.
An’ the driver,
He tells us
To move.
So three of us did.
I stood up and slid
Past the lady
Who seized on the moment . . .
An’ Lord!
We should thank
God for her!
‘Cause God knows
It wouldn’t have
Started with me.
And who
Would have guessed
That the rest
Of it all
Would occur?
MAN 2: MAN 1:
It was just
Another day. It was just
A bus ride The way things were.
Like so many others.
Just part of the times.
Another injustice.
A small inconvenience.
A minor arrest.
BOTH:
And nobody knew
We had just witnessed hist’ry.
MAN 1:
If I could,
I’d go back
And be diff’rent.
Even if
It was only
For me.
For if one woman
Can change the world . . .
