*On this date in 1900, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” also known as the Negro National Anthem and the Negro National Hymn, was sung publicly for the first time.
Written by James Weldon Johnson and featuring music by J. Rosamond Johnson, the song was written to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday at the Colored High School in Jacksonville, Fla. In 1926, Johnson acknowledged that the song did not express African American solidarity.
He said, “The song not only epitomizes the history of the race and its present condition but voices their hope for the future.”
Black First:
2,000 years of extraordinary achievement
by Jessie Carney Smith
Copyright 1994 Visible Ink Press, Detroit, MI
ISBN 0-8103-9490-1
Image: PBS
