San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Some voices lift; others divide
In late September 2001, I sat in Yankee Stadium behind more than three dozen Sikh men. We weren’t there for a baseball game but for an interfaith memorial service for the victims killed, 12 days earlier, in the 9/11 attacks.
During the service, the Boys and Girls Choir of Harlem sang a beautiful rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Their performance elicited no pockets of manufactured outrage; no opportunistic politicians accused the service’s organizers of being “woke”; no one claimed the song’s purpose was to make white people feel guilty.
When the choir finished, the Sikhs, along with thousands of others, stood, applauded and proudly waved American flags.
Last Sunday, for the first time, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was performed, by Sheryl Lee Ralph, before the Super Bowl. “America the Beautiful” was performed by Babyface, and, of course, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” our national anthem, as always, was performed by Chris Stapleton.
The performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” might have escaped controversy were it not also known by its unofficial name — the “Black national anthem.”
Two leading voices on the American far right quickly tweeted their objections. Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert chirped, “America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.”
Not to be out-anti-woked, her colleague Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote, “Chris Stapleton just sang the most beautiful national anthem at the Super Bowl. But we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness.”
They and their ilk are trying to do to the song what they’ve done with “woke,” which is to hijack and distort it for their nefarious purposes.
The irony is that the song was first performed in 1900 to celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president who wouldn’t be able to win a presidential primary in today’s Republican Party. Super Bowl Sunday — Feb. 12 — was Lincoln’s birthday.
The poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written by James Weldon Johnson, future leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a writer and leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Set to music composed by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, it became a song the NAACP, after World War I, promoted as the “Negro national anthem” before it evolved into the “Black national anthem.”
For generations, wherever African Americans have gathered in churches, schools and ceremonies, it has been sung. It is a cultural tradition, the most frequently recited — or sung —
poem written by an African American.
It is a song about the history of a people and the history of a nation. It’s about the transAtlantic slave trade, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and it’s about emancipation and fighting to expand democracy.
It’s about pain and progress, tragedy and triumph, being pushed back while still pushing on.
It’s about resistance, resiliency and reconciliation. It’s about getting knocked down but getting back up to march until victory is won.
From the first verse:
“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.”
Like many things and institutions featuring the names “Black” or “Mexican American” or “Native American” or “Women’s,” Black History Month was created out of exclusion, out of not being accepted or recognized by the dominant culture and power.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is about faith and hope and overcoming the dark past. But, first, that dark past must be acknowledged and reckoned with, not ignored.
It is an inclusive song, asking that all voices be lifted and
heard.
“Woke” isn’t a divisive state of mind. It’s been made divisive by those who have misappropriated its use to mock it and turn it into a buzzword.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” isn’t a divisive song. It’s been made divisive by those who hear a different song in their heads. It’s first three lines are: “Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty.”
Ignore the discordant notes warbled by its critics. Ring with the harmonies of liberty.