Lift Every Voice and Sing

The Hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing" began as a poem written by James Weldon Johnson. Johnson was a poet and lyricist, playwright, and diplomat. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Johnson to serve as US consul in both Nicaragua and Venezuela. Johnson was an important civil rights leader. He led the NAACP from 1920 through 1930 and expanded the organization's membership. James Weldon Johnson published a book of poems--a series of biblically based sermons--entitled God's Trombones. He led campaigns to condemn and prosecute lynching and helped draft legislation. James Weldon Johnson's brother John Rosamond Johnson later wrote the music. J. Rosamond was also a civil rights leader. He was also an accomplished musician and composer.

As part of the Arlington (Texas) Four-Day Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration, former Arlington Mayor the Honorable Elzie Odom, Sr. recorded an introduction to the Hymn. He explained that he had been taught to always sing all three verses of the hymn any time it was sung and to stand, whenever possible, to sing the song.

The song is a song of tenacious hope and perseverance. It expresses acknowledgment that the way has been difficult and demanding, but that through God's help the people singing the song recognize that their ultimate destiny is not defeat but victory. The first verse is a call for the congregation to sing along with the praise that all creation renders to God. While the first verse is a positive expression of praise, it does not ignore the context out of which it has emerged. "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."

The second verse of the hymn mingles lament with renewal. It begins in the remembrance of the "Stony Road" trod by the singers and painfully names the days lived through as ones when they "felt . . . [that] hope unborn had died." It laments the horrors of slavery, murder, terrorism, and war that African-Americans have endured. "We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered." Yet, with every honest recognition of tragedy, the song offers a more forceful rejection of acquiescence.

The final verse captures both the praise of the first and the lament of the second as it begins, "God of our weary years/God of our silent tears/Thou who has brought us thus far on the way." The song prays for focus and pledges devotion to God. "Shadowed beneath Thy hand/May we forever stand/True to our God/True to our native land."

For over 100 years, African-American leaders have referred to this great hymn of the church, "Lift Every Voice And Sing," as the "Black National Anthem." Both the intent and content of the poem speak to the experience of African-Americans. At the same time, it is a song for all humanity. When we who are not African-American sing this song, we ought not do so in unthoughtful appropriation. Rather the song gives us a small but profound window through which we may look with empathy and stand alongside our siblings. In some ways it is a mirror into which some of us must see ourselves and acknowledge our culpability. One person's prayer of intercession can be another person's prayer of repentance. It would be naïve to say that the political resistance to singing the song at highly visible public events is petty. Such objections are misguided, but the song's message is not benign. The song was spoken into a particular social and cultural context and it was meant to be both promise and prophecy. People object when confronted and the hymn does confront. It was political then and it is political now. However, it is good politics just as it is good poetry.

In the African-American Heritage Hymnal, each hymn is prefaced with a passage of scripture. The verse that prefaces "Lift Every Voice and Sing" is Psalm 148:13, "Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven." Amen