Written by J. Scott Franklin as part of Roots of American Music’s “Hough is My Home” series, a songwriting collaboration between ROAM teaching artists/musicians and senior adults who regularly attend the Fatima Family Center in Cleveland’s Hough community. Scott collaborated with Betty Pettis, who’s family moved from Arkansas to Cleveland when she was one month old. During the Hough riots Betty remembers holding her baby and feeling the need to protect him. She spoke about how the riots ended suddenly, and how you would never know today that Hough was the same neighborhood where those events took place. At one point, Betty had an unexplained illness which appeared to be taking her life. This illness went away suddenly, and she believes in miracles and in keeping your head up to the sky and praying. In Hough and the areas around Hough, Betty has found many friends that share her interests.
I Do Believe in Miracles
VERSE 1
Fires & bombs & everything but quiet
Fear & Curfew & look, here comes the guard
Sixty-six in the middle of the riots
And I held a baby in my arms
Whole places burning down, down
broken glass & alarms
broken souls, broken days, broken sounds,
Then it all just stopped. Life moved on.
CHORUS
I see an army, I’ve got an army too
I want to run, but I know the one
that will see me through
Do you believe in miracles? I do
keep your head up to the sky and pray.
You never know what’s on the way
I do believe. I do believe. I do believe in Miracles
VERSE 2
This is where I married, where I lived
I make friends everywhere I go
You drive these streets today and, barely remember
if you’d never seen it, you would never know.
Riots and their rain are like distant clouds
It all just stopped. And new life came.
Flowers grew, houses new, right where the old was trampled down
broken places slowly fade away
CHORUS
VERSE 3
Doctor said we don’t know what this is, going on
And what happened next, I really don’t recall
I was on the ground and they thought I was gone
Then it all just stopped, each day is miracle
CHORUS