‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ should be America’s second national anthem. Here’s why | Opinion

Why a Black National Anthem?

For white racists to say that there should be one national anthem, I say no to their argument. There is nothing wrong with having more than one national anthem.

There was a time when African Americans were not citizens of the U.S. We became citizens after fighting for freedom and citizenship in the Civil War.

The Black National Anthem – “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – is a hymn written as a poem by then NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) in 1900. Jame’s brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), wrote and composed the music and arrangements for the lyrics.

American history tells us that their has always been two sides of individual liberty in America, one that has always benefited from freedom because of the color of their skin and class privilege and the other had to fight fight for their freedoms because of the laws and social racism directed at their skin color and lack of class privilege.

The Black National Anthem is a tribute to that struggle and success.

Black people did not get full citizenship until the passage of the 1968 Civil Rights Act. That is why we sing the Black National Anthem in order to remember and not forget this struggle. Remember, that there are two Constitutions, the Constitution that permitted slavery (ratified on June 21, 1788) and the Abolitionist Constitution (ratified on Dec. 6, 1865) that created a truly multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religion America.

The Black National Anthem was created to remember this struggle of Black people in their struggle for freedom and to create a more just and more Perfect Union that benefits all Americans of all cultural, ethnic and religious expressions.

Just in case you have never read the lyrics and experienced the feelings of a people’s progress in fighting for freedoms that are guaranteed to all citizens of America. Here it is:

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

Lift every voice and sing,

‘Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the list’ning skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on ‘til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chastening rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

‘Til now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

our hearts drunk with 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.

This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 9:40 AM.