The song recently returned to the spotlight in 2020, during nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd. In 1919, 12 years before "The Star Spangled Banner" was declared the official national anthem, the NAACP named "Lift Every Voice and Sing" the "national anthem" for Black Americans. "Lift Every Voice and Sing" continued to hold the same power, message and impact in the following years. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us įacing the rising sun of our new day begun, Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us Ferguson, in which SCOTUS upheld "separate but equal" segregation. The song's lyrics feature "allusions to the transatlantic slave trade, the Jim Crow system, as well as the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation," per Insider. Johnson's tune was written as a source of empowerment for Black Americans after the American Civil War and the 1896 ruling of Plessy v. Rosamond Johnson, a composer and singer during the Harlem Renaissance. It was later set to music by Johnson's brother J. "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was written by James Weldon Johnson, a civil rights activist and leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in 1900. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
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