- October 8, 2020 Social Justice, Association, Spirituality
For nearly 100 years, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" has been a prayer-song of faith and determination, inspiration, courage and hope.
When I first heard "Lift Every Voice and Sing," I can't really say. It seems that I've known it my whole life. All that comes to mind when I think back is being in my childhood kitchen, my dad in his spot at the table and my mom nearby at the stove.
And for some reason the conversation would become about Black people and our struggle, and sure enough, my parents would fall into "Lift Every Voice and Sing," just as spontaneous and natural as rain: Dad's booming baritone and Mom's little soprano in the background, verse after verse after verse.
They had learned it in grade school and they sang it with pride. They sang it with conviction And they sang it from their very souls. So much so, we kids couldn't help but notice that this is important. This matters.
So over the course of my life, that same scene or one similar to it has played out, time and time again. On special occasions, or for no occasion at, all we sing it loud. We sing it together. We sing it spontaneously and never with any less enthusiasm or heart than before. We lift every voice and sing.
Long revered as the Black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" reflects the faith and courage and hope and strength present in the African American experience. The song was originally written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson, but was put to music and adopted as an anthem by the NAACP early in the 20th century.
The song itself is a stirring reminder of what it means to struggle, to overcome, to persist, and to live free in this nation that our ancestors helped to build. This song has comforted, encouraged and emboldened generations of Black Americans.
Although this anthem specifically calls to mind the African American experience, in reality, it reflects the history of Americans from all walks of life.
I hope that as you sing the words of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" into your heart, you'll feel yourself become more intimately American.
Lift Every Voice and Sing
by James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson
Lift ev'ry voice and sing
'Til earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on 'til victory is won
Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast