The Black Anthem

Remember in the movie “Lean on me” when Principal Joe Clark made the boys sing the school song in the bathroom – on demand?

That should be our vision for Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Every Black person should learn it. It should be a rallying call, a cry to unity with an understanding of the pain that brought us to the here and now, together. It should be the lyrical guidance of our ancestors and offsprings, uniting souls and generations, forever, past and present. We may, in our tribes, have differences, battling opinions, jealousy, dislike and other antagonizing disruptions but, they should all be diminished through this song:

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 hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast 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.

Songwriters: J. Rosamond Johnson / James Johnson