“Lift Every Voice and Sing” An Anthem for All
On February 12, 1900, at the segregated Edwin M. Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida,
preparations were being made to commemorate the birthday of President Abraham
Lincoln. The school was charged with anticipation because Booker T Washington, the American educator, author, orator and advisor to Presidents was to visit the campus.
The principal for the school was James Weldon Johnson. Wanting a song that would rise to the significance of the day, Johnson crafted a poem that not only celebrated the freedom from slavery but pointed to the hope for a better future dawning for African American people. James brother, John Rosamond Johnson composed the music for the poem. The song was met with great acclaim on that day of its debut, sung by a chorus of five hundred school children.
Shortly afterwards, James and John Johnson moved away from their Jacksonville, Florida school to New York, and the song passed out of their minds. But the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it. Some became teachers and they taught it to other school children. Within twenty years the song was being sung all over the south and it was also catching on in other parts of the country.
In 1917 James Weldon Johnson began to work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and in 1919, the organization adopted Johnson’s song, Lift Every Voice and Sing as their anthem. This song has served as a cry for liberation and affirmation for all African Americans, especially those who have been misused and abused. But it also speaks to all of us who have been through the struggle of a global pandemic. The first stanza opens with a command to optimism, praise and freedom. The second stanza reminds us to never forget what has been overcome in the past. The final stanza looks toward the future and advocates that American challenges be met with perseverance, faith, courage and trust in God.
Lift every voice and sing, Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise, High as the listening 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 till 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, Till now we stand at last, Where the white gleam of
our bright star is cast.
God
of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far
on the way
Thou who has by Thy might, Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path,
we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our
native land.
This Fourth of July as we give thanks to God for our nation, let us open our hearts and minds to the stories of all Americans. Not only those who have lost someone to the pandemic of Covid-19, but also those who have suffered and still continue to suffer from racism and discrimination in our country. Our God will lead us all forward together into the light if we stay on God’s path of love and acceptance for all of God’s children. May it be so.
