by Rebecca Spalding
Teaching Page made 10/2025
rehearsal video from 2019
A note from Kaitie:
I learned this song while singing in Golden Bridge Choir in Los Angeles. Maggie Wheeler was leading it and for the concert we were partnering with an organization in parts of Africa that supported youth from extreme circumstances who were moving in the direction of their big dreams. One of the youth, Grace Freeman from Liberia, had a dream of being a singer. Maggie smartly asked Grace to sing the verses for this song, as Golden Bridge Choir sang the chorus. It was powerful to have Grace, who had never been to the US before (I remember when we were in the bathroom, she had never seen an automatic faucet before and a worker from the organization showed her how to turn it on), singing this song about being an outsider in a strange land.
Lyrics:
Walk a mile in my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes
Before you throw the stones of judgment
Walk a mile in my shoes
Watch the walls come tumbling down
Of all you’ve loved and called your own
Freedom scattered on the winds
Walk a mile
Cut adrift from all you’ve known
The joys and hopes that built your home
No turning back – No never more
Walk a mile
Hold on tight to your dignity
Head held high in a strange country
Not as easy as it seems
Walk a mile
Look no further than yourself
Amongst the shadows of your soul
To find the weak and dispossessed
Walk a mile
Fellow Ubuntu Choirs Network songleader Gretchen Sleicher has a beautiful teaching page for this song. Please visit her website and enjoy her teaching tracks.
https://songsforthegreatturning.net/honoring-our-pain-for-the-world/walk-a-mile/