“This song is also about love for our country and each other. “Singing to God was an opportunity for African-Americans to share a proud history and hopeful perspective,” said Karen Lowery, daughter of civil rights icon Joseph Lowery and director of music and arts at Cascade United Methodist Church. So powerful is the song that it is often referred to as the “Black National Anthem,” although its composer referred to it simply as a hymn. ›Related video: Who was James Weldon JohnsonĬomposed more than a century ago, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” came along after Reconstruction, when a newly awakened black race was searching for an identity - just as Jim Crow was replacing slavery. Photo: James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,įacing the rising sun of our new day begun The Star Spangled Banner In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem, Defense of Fort McHenry.The poem was later put to the tune of (John Stafford Smith's song) The Anacreontic Song, modified somewhat, and retitled The Star Spangled Banner.It was first performed in public in the Johnsons’ hometown of Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday on Februby a choir. Lift Every Voice and Sing – often called “The Black National Anthem” – was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1899.The lyrics were set to music by by Johnson's brother, John Rosamond Johnson, and the song was. It is where my identity comes from.”Īs white supremacists descend on campus, the UF bell tower played the 'Black National Anthem'. “It means quite a bit to me, because it is one of the defining articles of African-American history,” Young said. And just like the Johnson Learning Center kids, on cue, he can recite the whole song.
It is the same thing he did as a child growing up in New Orleans. Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,Įvery morning, the kids at the Johnson Learning Center stand up and sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”Īndrew Young, some 70 years their senior, smiles at the image. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us įacing the rising sun of our new day begun,įelt in the days when hope unborn had died Ĭome to the place for which our fathers sighed? Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
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