C                       F
Mama never had a flower garden 

      G7                                C
Cause cotton grew right up to our front door

                        F
Daddy never went on a vacation 

   G7                            C
He died a tired old man at forty-four


                                         F
Our neighbors in the big house called us redneck

      G7                              C
Cause we lived in a poor sharecropper shack

                                           F
The Jackson's down the road were poor like we were

G7                                   C
But our skin was white and their was black


                           Gm          C
But I believe the south is gonna rise again

    F              E7                    Am
But not the way we thought it would back then

F           G7           Am
I mean everybody hand in hand 

F   C                  G7          C
I believe the south is gonna rise again


                              F
I see wooded parks and big skyscrapers 

      G7                             C
Where dirty rundown shack stood once before

                                 F
I see sons and daughter and sharecroppers 

G7                             C
But they're not picking cotton anymore


                               F
But more important I see human kindness 

      G7                          C
As we forget the bad and keep the good

                                        F
A brand new breeze is blowing cross the southland

G7                                   C
And I see a brand new kind of brotherhood


                           Gm          C
But I believe the south is gonna rise again

    F              E7                    Am
But not the way we thought it would back then

F           G7           Am
I mean everybody hand in hand 

F   C                  G7          C
I believe the south is gonna rise again