Child Groomer, Sexual Predator
3,840 posts
Lift Every Voice and Sing" is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving 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."
James Weldon Johnson, Chair of the Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, had sought to write a poem in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday. However, amid the ongoing civil rights movement, Johnson decided to write a poem which was themed around the struggles of African Americans following the Reconstruction era (including the passage of Jim Crow laws in the South). "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was first recited by a group of 500 students in 1900. His brother J. Rosamond Johnson would later set the poem to music.[3][4][5]
After the Great Fire of 1901, the Johnsons moved to New York City to pursue a career on Broadway. In the years that followed, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was sung within Black communities; Johnson wrote that "the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country."[3][6]
In January 2021, Representative and then-House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn sponsored HR 301, a bill which proposed that "Lift Every Voice and Sing" be designated as the "national hymn" of the United States.[15][16][17][18]
Conservative commentator Benny Johnson has called for "Lift Every Voice And Sing" to be made "illegal" because he views it as an attempt to divide Americans by race.[19]
——
Maybe there’s hope for the Ozark American National Anthem.
https://youtu.be/YMRR2O1P9js?si=IvZAmM-Os5G98s9R