“For Those Lost, for Those Taken” by Samora Pinderhughes was written for all those murdered by police brutality and state violence, and specifically written in honor of and dedication to Sandra Bland. The song is being shared with the blessing of Sandra’s family as part of the 5th anniversary of her murder by Texas police.
All proceeds from “For Those Lost, for Those Taken” will go towards efforts to end the carceral state, specifically COVID Bail Out NYC, an all-volunteer, emergency grassroots initiative engaging in an emergency bailout.
“For Those Lost, for Those Taken” is from Pinderhughes’ Black Spring EP. Samora has increasingly sought to inspire solidarity among communities dealing with different oppressive circumstances, particularly around immigrant detention and mass incarceration - seeing the similarities both in lived experience and structurally within the carceral state. He is a member of Ryan Coogler and Ava DuVernay’s Blackout for Human Rights, Common's nonprofit Imagine Justice, Unbound Philanthropy & Art For Justice, among others.
“The legal system is designed to kill us and then blame our own deaths on us. It is designed to let those who would harm us, whether police or civilian, commit violence against us. It is designed to keep us penned in, to keep us caged, to keep us fearing for our lives, to keep us in a reactive state. It is designed to keep us in a perpetual state of mourning. It is designed to let us know that we’re always being watched, that we’re never free. It is designed to use us as disposable objects, to make money off of or to throw away. That is what it has always been for. The whole system has got to go. The whole thing. We have to build something new in its place. I really don’t want to have to keep writing about this and to keep mourning all the time. I don’t know what to do but I know that we have to all tell the truth everyday about what this country does. And we have to use the tools at our disposal to work towards ending these whole systems.” - Samora Pinderhughes via Instagram
Promise me I'll be alive, when I leave my home Promise me I'll be alive, when I drive, alone
Stoplights could be murder
Movements could be murder
Conversations be murder
Promise me I'll be alive, when I leave my home Promise me I'll be alive, when I drive, alone
Stoplights could be murder
Movements could be murder
Steel bars, and they put a charge on my name
Now I think they got me back in chains…
If I die before you wake
I need you to know that
I was looking forward,
To my new job tomorrow
But these lights my life they take
When I'm on the road back
I can't stand the sirens,
I hear them and I know what follows
I told myself I won't break
They shouted a warning
They made up a story
They say I resisted, and I might go missing
All my momma does is pray
She'll wake in the morning
And not be in mourning...
That's why I just need you to listen
Promise me I'll be alive, when I leave my home Promise me I'll be alive, when I drive, alone
Stoplights could be murder
Movements could be murder
Conversations be murder
Promise me I'll be alive, when I leave my home Promise me I'll be alive, when I drive, alone
Stoplights could be murder
Movements could be murder
Conversations lead to confrontations,
Can’t take it no further
