I just wanted to go home and play after church

A normal-kid thing to do in GE-centric Schenectady

A New York place with Union soldier monuments all around

Yet as segregated as any Southern town.

We went to a lily-white church

Staunch conservatives all

Yet this day, the congregation walked to the Courthouse

Our 12 white Elders led the way.

We joined a large gathering

A rainbow of churches from all around

Speeches about a place called Selma

Something in our country was very wrong.

I remember our 12 white Elders

Crossing arms singing, “We Shall Overcome”

We went home, and I got to play

Yet even for the son of a white Elder

Things were different from that day.

(In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  
My father, John E. Ryan, passed away in 2000.)