Lyrics:

What is America to me?
A name? A map? The flag I see?
A certain word: “democracy”?
What is America to me?

The house I live in, a plot of earth, a street,
The grocer and the butcher, and the people that I meet,
The children in the playground, the faces that I see,
All races, all religions: that’s America to me.

The house I live in, my neighbors white and black,
The people who just came here or from generations back,
The town hall and the soapbox, the Torch of Liberty,
A home for all our children: that’s America to me.

The house I live in, the friends that I have found,
The folks beyond the railroad, and the people all around,
The worker and the farmer, the sailor on the sea,
The folk who built this country: that’s America to me.

The words of old Abe Lincoln, of Jefferson and Paine,
Of Washington and Douglass, and the tasks that still remain,
From the streets of Boston, where Crispus Attucks died,
To Wounded Knee, where AIM resisted being cast aside.

The place I work in, the workers at my side,
The little town or city, where my people lived and died,
The howdy and the handshake, the air of feeling free,
The right to speak my mind out: that’s America to me.

The things I see about me, the big things and the small,
The little corner newsstand, and the house a mile tall,
The wedding and the churchyard, the laughter and the tears,
The dream that’s been a-growing for these past two hundred years.

The house I live in, the goodness everywhere,
A land of wealth and beauty with enough for all to share,
A house that we call freedom, the home of liberty,
It belongs to all people: that’s America to me.

The town I live in, the street, the house, the room,
The pavement of the city or a garden all in bloom,
The church, the school, the clubhouse, the million lights I see,
But especially the people: that’s America to me.

America to me.