Remarks:
In the US this song is also known as the Black National Anthem. At Howard University, the cheerleaders take a knee during “The Star-Spangled Banner” (as pictured above in the current masthead), but stand up and raise their fists in a Black Power salute during this song. When White nationalist Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida the other day, the university’s bell tower played this song!
“Lift Every Voice” was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1900, was made into a song by his brother in 1905, and was named the “Negro National Anthem” by the NAACP in 1919 – that is 12 years before “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the official national anthem of the US!
See also:
Lyrics:
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.
I am rooting for all the black people.✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿
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I was on Ebony.com and read a music professor played Lift Every Voice And Sing during Richard Spencer’s visit at University at Florida.
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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Reblogged this on bjornhenry and commented:
The Black National Anthem
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In America we have only one national anthem – the Star-Spangled Banner. This song is no more a national anthem than Rebecca Black’s Friday.
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“The Black National Anthem.” – bjornhenry
WHAT?? A people without their own land; their own government; nor are they assembled or organized as a nation. But yet, we supposedly have a national anthem. Ok, …… thank you Sir!
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