'Lift Every Voice and Sing' can lift America

This post was printed in the Wilson Times July 11, 2020

Lost among the news from a busy Independence Day weekend was a Washington Post report that the National Football League would begin its first game of the 2020-21 season with the playing or performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn often known as the “Black National Anthem.”

            On July 4, the annual music and fireworks celebration on the National Mall included C.C. Winans singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The Post story mentioned that the anthem had been sung by demonstrators at various recent protests of racial injustice in cities around the country.

            I, for one, applaud the revival of the rousing anthem, which was written 100 years ago by two brothers, James W. Johnson (lyrics, originally formed as a poem) and J. Rosemond Johnson (tune). It’s a hymn that I very much enjoyed singing at church. The song was used as an opening or closing hymn frequently for several years. I can’t recall how the hymn had been introduced to our mostly white and traditional congregation or why it slipped from our repertoire, but the hymn could have easily been forgotten as pastors and music directors changed. This year, I complained to my wife that “Lift Every Voice” had not been included in the service the Sunday before the Martin Luther King holiday.

            Our congregation had sung the hymn to an upbeat, defiant tempo, which I loved. I was surprised at one MLK Day breakfast several years ago when Bill Myers, arguably Wilson’s most beloved musician, led the singing of “Lift Every Voice” from his keyboard with a doleful, almost funereal tempo. Both styles work, and I don’t know enough to know which one is “correct.”

            However it’s sung, “Lift Every Voice” is a wonderful song with powerful words and an uplifting melody. I have suggested to friends who would listen that “Lift Every Voice” deserved to be more than the “Black National Anthem.” Its message, though originally intended for African-Americans in the first generation after slavery ended, can speak to Americans of all races and ethnicities. Lines such as “We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered” clearly resonate with African-Americans, but other Americans can identify with lyrics such as “Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee; Lest our hearts, drunk on 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.”

            In this time of racial re-examination and reformation, songs like “Lift Every Voice” can enhance understanding and bring the American people together. I would suggest a national sing-along with every congregation including “Lift Every Voice” in its service on a designated Sunday.

            Periodically, we have seen proposals that the National Anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” be replaced with an anthem that is more singable without such a difficult vocal range and without the bellicose wording of this poem from the War of 1812. If this debate arises again, “Lift Every Voice” should be considered as a replacement, along with “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “God Bless America.” I won’t push my personal favorite patriotic song, John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”; it needs an orchestra and is a bit bellicose.