Something there is that loves a wall,
That wants the other people far away,
That says “It’s right to be apart,
And each of us on our own side should stay.”
Something that says you’re different,
That in between us there must be a line.
It says you need to know your place
And set a moat between your home and mine.

Word came down from the F.H.A.
To say who could be worthy of a loan.
On maps around black neighborhoods
A line drawn in forbidding red was shown.
And in Detroit the rules declared
Most neighborhoods off limits to dark skin.
In places where they were allowed,
The residents were packed and crowded in.

An area too close to them
Faced disapproval from the F.H.A.
Although black skin was banished there
It could be seen not very far away.
So a developer put up
A wall of concrete parting black from white.
It stood between the neighborhoods
And kept those colored people out of sight.

It wasn’t hard to walk around.
The Birwood Wall was just a half mile long.
It power was in what it said:
“Beyond this line you people don’t belong.”
It satisfied the F.H.A.
And the appraisers from H.O.L.C.
The red line ran along the wall,
A line and wall dividing you from me.

The Birwood Wall is standing still,
Stands to remind us of those tragic days
When bureaucrats who had the pow’r
Demanded that we go in sep’rate ways.
Today its face is not so grim;
Bright images now decorate the wall.
The barrier it tried to keep
Has yielded to a sign of hope for all.