12/23/2023 0 Comments Who sang lift every voice and sing![]() ![]() In Forever We Stand, Perry writes that by the late ’60s, “We Shall Overcome” “seemed naive and even insipid in comparison to the reach for soul and the deliberate invocation of the African continent and diaspora.”Īs a new generation of Black activists, artists and politicians rose to the fore in the ’70s, they adopted “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as a symbol of resistance. “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” however, would soon regain its urgency, as harrowing police violence and unwavering systems of segregation would mar the early pacifist optimism of the Civil Rights Movement. But as folk music rose to the fore, the song was soon supplanted by a new wave of freedom songs like “We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not Be Moved,” whose simple and direct choruses were sung with fervor at marches from Selma to Washington. When the Civil Rights Era began in the 1950s, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was sung during organizational meetings for the Montgomery Bus Boycott and quoted in speeches by Dr. Maya Angelou, in her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, recalled singing the song with her Black classmates in Oakland as a rejoinder to a visiting racist white politician. In 1929, it was sung in support of the unionization of Black porters In 1936, it opened the first conference of the National Negro Congress, an anti-fascist organization fighting for Black liberation. ![]() “I sang the Negro National Anthem when my tooth was hurting because of an exposed cavity-I sang the Negro National Anthem when I did not know there was a future for a little black girl with twelve sisters and brothers.” A symbol of resistanceĪs Black activists continued to mobilize in their fight against discrimination and segregation, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” took on an increasingly political bent, symbolizing defiance in the face of white oppression. “I sang the Negro National Anthem when I was hungry,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters wrote in Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Celebration of the Negro National Anthem, edited by Julian Bond and Sondra Kathryn Wilson. It’s been performed at protests across the country following the police killing of George Floyd, slipped into national anthems at NASCAR races and even co-opted by Joe Biden for one of his campaign proposals, “Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan For Black America.”īefore long, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” would become, in Perry’s words, “a universal signifier of Black identity.” It was sung at church services, civic organization meetings, pageants and graduations it anchored Emancipation Day and Negro History Week celebrations and daily school rituals. But this decision-which has been met with skepticism across the ideological spectrum-is just the latest example of the song’s reinvigoration in American public life. ![]() “It is our common thread.”ĭuring the NFL’s opening week, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” will be performed before each game, ahead of “The Star Spangled Banner,” as an effort to reinforce the league’s professed newfound alignment with Black Lives Matter. “Four generations of my family, at least, have lived with this anthem,” Imani Perry wrote in May F orever We Stand, her book about the song. But the song has long been a pillar of Black culture and life, sung at church ceremonies, political protests, school graduations and family gatherings. “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” otherwise known as the Black national anthem, was introduced to many by Beyoncé when she sang it at Coachella two years ago. 10, it will do so with a song that is unknown to some Americans and essential to others. When the National Football League kicks off its season on Sept. ![]()
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