Lyrics

I grew up with reverence for the red white and blue Spoke of God and liberty, reciting the pledge of allegiance Learned love of country from my own family Some shivered and prayed approaching the beaches of Normandy The flag waves high and that's how it should be So many lives given and taken in the name of freedom But the story's complicated and hard to read Pages of the book obscured or torn out completely I am a son of Uncle Sam And I struggle to understand the good and evil But I'm doing the best I can In a place built on stolen land with stolen people Blood in the soil with the cotton and tobacco A misnamed people and a kidnapped race Laws may change but we can't erase the scars of a nation Of children devalued and disavowed Displaced by greed and the arrogance of manifest destiny Short-sighted to say it was a long time ago Not even two lifetimes have past since the days of Lincoln The sins of Andrew Jackson, the shame of Jim Crow And time moves slow when the tragedies are beyond description I am a son of Uncle Sam And I struggle to understand the good and evil But I'm doing the best I can In a place built on stolen land with stolen people We are more than the sum of our parts All these broken homes and broken hearts God will you keep us wherever we go Will you forgive us for where we've been? We Americans Blood on the table with the coffee and the sugar I've been to every state, seen shore to shore The still open wounds of the civil war Watched blind hatred bounce back and forth Seen vile prejudice both in the south and the north And accountability is hard to impose On ghosts of ancestors haunting the halls of our conscience But the path of grace and goodwill is still here, For those of us who may be considered among the living I am a son of God and man And I may never understand the good and evil But I dearly love this land Because of, and in spite of we the people We are more than the sum of our parts All these broken bones and broken hearts God will you keep us wherever we go Can you forgive us for where we've been? We Americans We Americans Love in our hearts with the pain and the memory