The
Black (or
Negro)
national anthem in the
United States, sung during many
sit-ins and
marches during the 19
60s. The song is over 100 years old, written by
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) in the year
1900 to celebrate
Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Quickly it became a popular
Juneteenth Day song.
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening 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 till 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 wary feet
Come to the place for which our
fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with
tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path
through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Where the white gleam of
our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
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 Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land.