Sunday, January 19, 2020

Lift Every Voice and Sing


Lift Every Voice and Sing
Lift every voice and sing 
Till 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 faith that the dark past has tought 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 till victory is won 

Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chast'ning rod
Felt in the day that hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place on 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, till now we stand at last  
Where the white gleam of our 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
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee 
Shadowed beneath the hand
May we forever stand 
True to our God
True to our native land


As part of a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12, 1900, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was first publicly performed by 500 school children at the Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida. The school principal, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the words and Johnson’s broth3r Rosamond set them to music. The children continued to sing the song, popularizing it for generations to come. 
Later, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 
(NAACP) adopted the song as the Black National Anthem.
In calling for earth and heaven to “ring with the harmonies of Liberty,” the 
lyrics spoke out subtly against racism and Jim Crow laws—and especially the huge number of lynching’s accompanying the rise of the Klan at the turn of the century.
By the 1920s, copies of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” could be found in Black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals. The  
words to the poem/song and another poem by Johnson can be read on the  
Civil Rights Movement Veterans website.
Learn about the history of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in  
(UNC Press, 2018) by Imani Perry.

8 comments:

R.L. said...

This makes me wonder how many COG services mentioned Dr. King this weekend. Somehow, I doubt many did.

I'm also reminded of the MLK Day sermon Joseph Tkach Sr. gave in Pasadena in the late 80s. The video was sent to all churches, in which he said: "There should be no prejudism in God's church."

He said it twice, and they didn't edit it out of the video - even though no such word exists. Before "cringeworthy" was a word, that was.

Anonymous said...

... how many COG services mentioned Dr. King this weekend.

Afro-Americans are the Canaanites. They should have been exterminated when they occupied Palestine back in the days of Joshua. They are supposed to be enslaved. Genesis said so. Our great and bold White American forefathers were right to enslave them. Our forefathers were just carrying out the will of God. Liberals want us to feel ashamed but we were being righteous servants of God. God hates it when good is called evil and evil is called good. God's church believes in segregation. And besides, they and the other Gentiles will always be Israel's servants.

Not. (At least for me.)

Byker Bob said...

I've been watching African American themed movies this evening to get into the spirit for tomorrow. What an awesome national treasure our African American citizens have given us!

BB

nck said...

NEO

Yet in 1977 Herman Hoeh sermoned at the black (by law) South African Feast site, starting "Why are WE gentiles here?

As published in the Worldwide News (or whatever it was called at the time.

nck

Anonymous said...

Many blacks believe that they are Israel and Jesus was black. Though there's no way of proving this, I have no problem with the possibility. Does it really matter whether white Europeans are Israel or if Africans are Israel or if neither are Israel? It doesn't to me, neither case can be proven nor disproven. Who cares!

Have a great Martin Luther King day!

I have 1% sub-Saharan blood in me, my great, great, great, great (not sure exactly how far back) grandfather was a slave who fought in the Revolutionary war, listed as mulatto in the records.

km

Anonymous said...

NCK:

Some nuances. Hoeh identified West African Blacks as Canaanites. And West Africa, it was thought, was where most of the Afro-Americans came from. Hence, the parallel between Ancient Israel/Canaanite Minority and Modern USA/Afro-American Minority. A warm fuzzy for all the BI fans.

I found a webpage that carries Hoeh's article entitled "The Origin of the Nations!". The webpage makes available the original PDF of the article and also a transcribed HTML text block. In the original article Hoeh wrote the following in the topical section on Canaanites (this is a nice Hoehvian transfer of identity for all the Southern Armstrongists):

From North Africa the dark-skinned Canaanites migrated to West Africa and are called
"Negroes" today."

But in the HTML text block, someone edited in the following statement in the same topical section in reference to enslavement:

"Many have quoted this in direct reference to the Negro. As brothers of Canaan, the Negroes have shared the same position in life, but Negroes are not Canaanites."

I don't know who this "editor" was and what the precise motivation was. But the HTML text block is not the same as Hoeh's original article.

In any case, the Canaanites were not just Gentiles but were held to be specially cursed in Genesis. Hoeh would not have seen the South African Blacks as Canaanites. He might have felt less averse to including himself as a Gentile with the South African Blacks for this reason.

Anonymous said...

NCK - Addendum

I should add, the modern day Canaanites are the Lebanese as determined in the research of Dr. Spencer Wells (a video produced by the National Geographic Society is on YouTube). The ancient Canaanites were haplogroup J like their cousins, the Israelites, and Black Africans almost entirely fall into the hapogroup E range. I am not sure how the Genesis prophecy of being enslaved turned out in history. I don't think the Phoenicians were ever much enslaved.

nck said...

If what you say is correct then where Hoeh went wrong is that the Phoenicians and their brothers the Carthaginians both had colonies/trading posts in the North and West of Africa.

Of course completely different haplos then the native peoples. The Phoenicians were traders.

I travelled the entirer Phoenician sphere and saw settlements in Morocco. This year I went to see Carthage. Not many black men there are found, lots of olive.

nck