I didn't expect to start a boycott
I just wanted to rest my feet
From a long day's work you see
I been working hard all week
And now you expect me to just give up my seat?
Bus driver, please.

Tell me you'll have me arrested quickly
If I don't do it swiftly
Like staying out of jail when I didn't even commit a crime
Is supposed to be your gift to me?
Well keep it
You lookin at me like I'm the one that jumped off the deep end
I paid for this seat and
My humble home is all the way across town
So pardon me if I choose to stay sitting down
Instead of standing in the aisle
These heels are as comfortable as a cactus pricking my sole
And lately pain seems to be in style

I'm not trying to start a boycott
I just want to rest my feet
I'm not moving from this seat

To you this seat is just a place to sit down
But I see generations years down
Not being limited or intimidated
By issues that are skin related
I see a legacy
Not just an empty seat
Because in my seat as secretary of the NAACP
I work to fight against injustice every single day
But as soon as I aboard this bus
I look the other way
But I’m putting an end to that today
So I repeat
I’m not moving from this seat

So now I'm sitting in a different seat
Only this one’s no bus
It’s black and white with flashing lights
And complimentary handcuffs
And you ask me
Why didn't I just stand up?
Or surrender like I had my hands up
But I did stand up
Because sitting down meant standing up for what's right
And standing up for something wrong
Wouldn't have been right in my eyes
So if I have to stay in jail for a night
I'll wear it like a badge
In this fight for my civil rights
And for the rights of my people
To be treated as equals
We had a whole civil war
I’m hoping for a new sequel

They opened up my jail cell
And told me I was free to go
But I didn’t feel free
It was humiliating having to suffer the indignity
Of riding segregated buses twice a day, five days a week,
To go downtown and work for white people next to free

And this bus fare isn't free
And I know life isn’t fair or free
But I’m not asking for no handouts
I pay the same bus fare as the people
Whose pigmentation has a different intensity
And I swear my money is the same color
And has the same weight, worth, and trust
But all of a sudden the money I paid at the front
Depreciates as I walk to the back of the bus
All because the color of my skin is less luminous
My actions weren't scripted but
My dignity had reached its limit

I said they told me I was free to go but I didn't FEEL free
How could I?
After my arrest I received
Death threats when I walked out the door
And my job as a seamstress
Was ripped from me at the local department store
You think I did this to be known?
Shows how much you know
I didn't expect to start a boycott
I just wanted to rest my feet

These feet
Are the same feet that had to walk to and from school everyday
When Jim Crow laws took our transportation away
These feet
Are tired of wearing the shoes of injustice
Tied with the laces of racism
These feet are swollen
Beaten up by the rough journey to equality
Keep your whites only signs
Keep your empty apologies
You kept your mule and 40 acres
These feet are tired of your empty promises
So when I tell you I just wanted to rest my feet
Maybe now you’ll understand what I mean

Because most people get it wrong when they tell the story of me
To set the record clean
I wasn’t anymore tired than a usual long day’s work
The only tired I was, was tired of giving in