Hey Nelly Nelly
Hey Nelly Nelly - meaning Summary
Progress Across a Century
The poem tracks a narrator’s eyewitness memory of a century-long struggle for racial equality. Beginning with a stranger preaching freedom in the 1850s, it moves through enlistment and Civil War violence in the 1860s, the death of that man, and culminates in a 1963 column of integrated marchers. Refrains frame these snapshots to show progress, loss, and the ongoing, costly nature of social change across generations.
Read Complete AnalysesHey Nelly Nelly, come to the window Hey Nelly Nelly look at what I see He's riding into town on a sway back mule Got a tall black hat and he looks like a fool He sure is talkin' like he's been to school And it's 1853 Hey Nelly Nelly, listen what he's sayin' Hey Nelly Nelly, he says it's gettin' late And he says them black folks should all be free To walk around the same as you and me He's talkin' 'bout a thing he calls democracy And it's 1858 Hey Nelly Nelly hear the band a playing Hey Nelly Nelly, hand me down my gun 'Cause the men are cheerin' and the boys are too They're all puttin' on their coats of blue I can't sit around here and talk to you 'Cause it's 1861 Hey Nelly Nelly, Come to the window Hey Nelly Nelly, I've come back alive My coat of blue is stained with red And the man in the tall black hat is dead We sure will remember all the things he said In 1865 Hey Nelly Nelly, come to the window Hey Nelly Nelly, look at what I see I see white folks and colored walkin' side by side They're walkin' in a column that's a century wide It's still a long and a hard and a bloody ride In 1963
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