125 Years of “Lift Every Heart and Sing”
It was in 1900, 125 years ago this month, that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” debuted in celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. A choir of 500 schoolchildren first performed the poem at the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, where its author, James Weldon Johnson (right), was the school principal . He would later become a leader in the NAACP, as well as holding several academic and government posts. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson, composed the accompanying music.
The song was later adopted by the NAACP and became a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement. In 2020, there was renewed energy surrounding the piece, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the racial reckoning that followed in the United States. According to Wikipedia,
Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving to God as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery that evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the “promised land.”
Since 1917, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has been recognized as the Black national anthem. It is often showcased on some of the world’s most prominent stages, including the LIX Super Bowl, where singer Ledisi delivered a powerful rendition of the hymn. It is a common tradition for people to stand in respect when it is performed at various venues across the country, particularly during Black History Month.
This work has also inspired other art, perhaps most famously a sculpture by Augusta Savage created for the 1939 New York World’s Fair; Savage was the only Black woman commissioned for the Fair. Originally named after the hymn, it was later retitled “The Harp” by the Fair’s organizers. Although it was destroyed after the Fair, replicas of the sculpture “Lift Every Voice and Sing” are found in prominent museums around the world.
This hymn is found in dozens of Christian hymnals including PCUSA Glory to God ( #339) . In 1990, it was entered into the Congressional Record and added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2016. As recently as January 2021 a bill was proposed that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” be designated as the national hymn of the United States.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Lift every voice and sing / ‘Til 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 ’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 died.
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.
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.
Sources
NAACP – https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/lift-every-voice-and-sing
Wikipedia –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Weldon_Johnson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_Every_Voice_and_Sing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_Every_Voice_and_Sing_(sculpture)
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLmWe4lwoUQ
