“Lift Every Voice and Sing” sets an atmosphere of reverence and gratitude—for the American journey of Black people, for the selfless sacrifices of the ancestors, for an inheritance of indomitability and resilience—and on the Wattstax stage, the hymn elevates the celebration of Black pride.
“It’s one of the highlights of my life,” says Weston, reached recently at her home in Detroit. Reflecting on the song’s powerful resonance, she says: “I’ve been singing ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ since I was five years old. I learned it in kindergarten—we sang it every day. So that performance was a beautiful moment of solidarity.”
This year, the NFL announced that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” will be played or performed in the first week of the season, an acknowledgement of the explosive social unrest and racial injustices that have recently reawakened the American conscience. Just two years ago, team owners banned Colin Kaepernick and other players from silently protesting the same crimes against Black humanity by taking a knee during the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Weston believes the gesture indicates progress. “You know what? I sang ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ at the first inauguration of President G. W. Bush,” Weston says. “I think that that's the same thing he was doing, showing the Black community that there is some concern. What do they call that, an olive branch?”
In 1900, James Weldon Johnson composed the poem that would become the hymn that, in the 1920s, would be adopted by the NAACP as the official Negro National Anthem. A prototypical renaissance man, Johnson was among the first Black attorneys to be admitted to the Florida bar, at the same time he was serving as principal of the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, his alma mater and the institution where his mother became the city’s first Black public-school teacher.
Tasked with saying a few words to kick off a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Johnson opted to display another one of his many gifts by writing a poem instead of a standard, more easily forgettable speech. He wrestled with perfecting the verses, and his equally talented brother J. Rosamond Johnson, a classically trained composer, suggested setting them to music. A chorus of 500 students sang their new hymn at the event.
When the two brothers relocated to New York to write Broadway tunes—yet another professional pivot in Johnson’s illustrious career—“Lift Every Voice and Sing” continued to catch on and resonate in Black communities nationwide, particularly following an endorsement by the influential Booker T. Washington. Millions more have sung it since.