#LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING PROFESSIONAL#

He published several books and a collection of poetry. He spent eight years as a diplomat under Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, serving in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

#LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING PROFESSIONAL#

He worked as a professional songwriter briefly in New York. After leaving Stanton School, he would go on an equally diverse and impressive career. In 1897, Johnson had become the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar since Reconstruction. During those years, he also founded a newspaper, the Daily American, and studied law. Johnson would serve as principal until 1902. After taking his degree, he returned to Jacksonville and was named principal of his former school at the ripe old age of 23. A local academic star, he had graduated at age sixteen and enrolled at Atlanta University. It’s understandable that James would want to make a real impression, as he had grown up in Jacksonville and attended the Stanton School as a child. Rosamond Johnson, a trained composer, to set his words to music. He first wrote a poem, but anxious to have a real impact, he asked his brother, J. James Weldon Johnson was 29 years old and the principal of Stanton School when he was asked to prepare something for the Lincoln celebration. Today, the song is frequently described as the “African American National Anthem.” Within a decade, black school children across America were singing the song, and in 1919, the recently formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) adopted “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as its official song. Though unveiled as part of a community celebration in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the song quickly spread outside the community of Jacksonville. It gave me chills and pride then and now.“Life Every Voice and Sing” was written by a school principal and first performed by 500 children in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1900. She told us it was the Black National Anthem “but people of all colors should celebrate this song and each other.” I’ll never forget her. Gravier, who just happened to be white, taught it to us and sang just as loudly as us kids.

Michele Hall Robertson: I remember singing this each day in my westside Chicago Public School, way back in the late 60s and early 70s. We sang this song every day as we worked to become part of Dr. Children and staff were mixed, racially and economically, which was highly innovative in 1979. It was the first of many lessons I received from coworkers who helped me understand the African-American culture when I taught kindergarten at the Central Presbyterian Child Development Center in downtown Atlanta. This annual #tdih post solicits stories from people about “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in their lives. Learn about the history of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem (UNC Press, 2018) by Imani Perry. “ Happy 95th Birthday, Elizabeth Catlett!” (2010) in The Root describes her work as a noted sculptor and printmaker. Her own life story is well worth reading, including being confronted by McCarthyism. The children’s book about the song featured on this page has an introduction by Jim Haskins and art by Elizabeth Catlett. The words to the poem/song and another poem by Johnson can be read on the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website. Sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett.īy the 1920s, copies of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” could be found in Black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals.

Lift every voice and sing