Written for 500 schoolchildren in 1900, it became the Black national anthem: “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

In February 1900, in Jacksonville, Florida, a school principal needed a song for his students to sing at a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. He wrote one with his brother. It would become known as the Black national anthem.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written by James Weldon Johnson, with music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson.

The brothers

James Weldon Johnson was a teacher, lawyer, writer and later a diplomat and civil rights leader. J. Rosamond Johnson was a composer and musician. The brothers wrote many songs together. The song was first performed by a choir of about 500 schoolchildren at the Stanton School in Jacksonville, where James Weldon Johnson was principal. The children remembered it and taught it to others, and it spread through Black schools and churches across the American South.

The words and the NAACP

The song is a hymn of hope and struggle. The first verse calls on people to sing until “earth and heaven ring”. The second remembers the suffering of slavery: “Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod.” The third is a prayer: “God of our weary years, God of our silent tears.” It moves from celebration to memory to prayer, and it keeps faith at its centre.

In the early twentieth century, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People adopted the song and called it the “Negro National Anthem”. It was sung at meetings, rallies and church services.

Civil rights

During the civil rights movement, the song was sung at gatherings across the United States. It has been performed at presidential inaugurations, sports events and funerals, and it remains central to Black American church life. James Weldon Johnson later wrote that he and his brother paid little attention to the song after writing it. It was the children and teachers who kept singing it and passed it on, until it had a life far beyond the celebration it was written for.

Beyond America

Gospel choirs in Africa and around the world have learned the song, drawn by its history and its message of faith in the face of suffering. The song ends with a plea: “Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand, true to thee, O God, true to our native land.” A song written for schoolchildren on Lincoln’s birthday closes as a prayer, which is why churches have kept singing it.