Unless you have been under a rock, you know that Beyoncé’s Saturday night performance at Coachella pretty much took the world and -- perhaps more importantly – social media by storm, with her comprehensive and stunning celebration of black culture and HBCUs.
But deeply imbedded within the performance was 90-second rendition of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a 118-year-old hymn that is often referred to as the “Negro National Anthem.”
»RELATED: AJC Sepia Black History Month Series
In under two minutes, in front of a delirious -- mostly white -- crowd, the pop star was able to conjure the pain, passion and pride that Johnson envisioned when he wrote it as a poem in 1900.
“It means quite a bit to me, because it is one of the defining articles of African-American history,” former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young said about the song earlier this year. “It is what we grew up on. It is where my identity comes from.”
The bulk of coverage of Beyoncé's "Beychella" performance centered around her tribute to historically black colleges and universities. Her show featured a marching band, a drumline and even a mini step-show.
On Monday, she backed up the performance by announcing a $100,000 donation to Tuskegee University, Bethune-Cookman University, Xavier University of Louisiana and Wilberforce University.
One student from each school will receive a $25,000 scholarship through her BeyGOOD initiative.
›Related video: Who was James Weldon Johnson?
But Beyoncé’s cover of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” was significant because it was in front of a largely white audience at the Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif., where she was the first black woman to ever headline the event.
It was also no coincidence that “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” segued into her politically-charged 2016 hit, “Formation,” which the Los Angeles Times called at the time, "a statement of radical black positivity."
Which is exactly what “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” is.
Composed more than a century ago, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” came along after Reconstruction, when a newly awakened black race was searching for an identity — just as Jim Crow was replacing slavery. So powerful is the song that it is often referred to as the “Negro National Anthem” or the “Black National Anthem,” although its composer referred to it simply as a hymn.
Credit: James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University
Credit: James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University
»RELATED: Read the original story about the Negro National Anthem
“Singing to God was an opportunity for African-Americans to share a proud history and hopeful perspective,” said Karen Lowery, daughter of civil rights icon Joseph Lowery and director of music and arts at Cascade United Methodist Church. “This song is also about love for our country and each other. When the music begins, and people stand together to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” I experience both sadness and happiness. I feel an intense bond and a divine connection with voices present, past and future.”
"Lift Every Voice and Sing," (sometimes written as "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing") was created as a poem in 1900 by writer and activist James Weldon Johnson for a program in Jacksonville, Fla. to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
Noelle Morrissette, the author of "James Weldon Johnson's Modern Soundscapes," and the editor of two other books on Johnson's life, said Johnson was originally invited to speak at the event but felt a more lyrical inspiration that became the song.
His younger brother John Rosamond Johnson set the poem to music and on Feb. 12, 1900, 500 schoolchildren performed it for the first time.
“I could not keep back the tears,” Johnson wrote about the performance. “And made no effort to do so.”
Soon, as the song’s lyrics and music were pasted on the backs of hymnals and Sunday school songbooks across the South, church and HBCU choirs started singing it.
As early as 1920 — after the NAACP adopted it as its official song — people were referring to it as the “Negro National Anthem.”
Imani Perry, the Hughes-Rogers professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University, said black educators in the ’20s and ’30s wrote curricula based on the song. After Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926, the song became a staple of the celebration that would eventually become Black History Month.
In Perry's latest book, "May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem," she wrote that based on the records of black schools, civic and political institutions, as well as memoirs, oral histories, literature, newspapers and theater, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was used much more broadly than most anthems.
“The Star-Spangled Banner,” didn’t officially become America’s national anthem until 1931.
“It was literally a part of the daily or weekly practice of African Americans, particularly those in the South,” Perry told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was so deeply cherished that it was embraced by people with dramatically different political philosophies: integrationists and black nationalists, as well as patriots and radical leftists.”
Credit: Kevin Winter
Credit: Kevin Winter
»RELATED: Read the AJC's HBCU series: A Threatened Heritage
“Nothing that I have done has paid me back so fully in satisfaction as being part creator of this song,” Johnson wrote in his 1933 autobiography. “I am always thrilled deeply when I hear it sung by Negro children. I am lifted up on their voices, and I am also carried back and enabled to live through again the exquisite emotions I felt at the birth of the song. My brother and I, in talking, have often marveled at the results that have followed what we considered an incidental effort…we wrote better than we knew.”
Instead of 500 children, Beyoncé stood in the middle of her marching band and violinists, while a group of steppers provided percussion and a call and response.
But the song is not without controversy. In 2008, jazz singer Rene Marie was roundly criticized for singing the lyrics of the song to the tune of the country’s official national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Indeed, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — the history of its performances, the contexts in which it has been sung and in which it has been received — carries us directly to Colin Kaepernick’s protest over the national anthem,” Morrissette said. “Is there space in American culture for dissenting black voices? Are black citizens permitted to love their nation and criticize it?”
Young said while he agrees that the song holds universal appeal, the fact that it is considered a black hymn allows it to maintain its power and spirituality, while uplifting a race.
“I think it will maintain its relevance and meaning and it will continue to be important. In fact, I think it is much more powerful and religious than “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Young said. “There are parts of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that are very problematic. But “Lift Every Voice,” gets better and more powerful on every verse.”
For his part, Princeton’s Perry said Johnson resisted the label anthem, recognizing that there was only one national anthem: Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Instead, he referred to it as a hymn, while acknowledging that it was a great source of racial pride.
Perhaps never more so than in 2009, when Rev. Lowery delivered the benediction at the inauguration of the nation’s first black president. Instead of beginning his prayer with a Bible verse, he picked his own expression of racial pride, the third stanza of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
And perhaps never more so again than when Beyoncé sang it at Coachella.
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 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 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,
Till 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,
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.”
An original version of this story ran on Feb. 1, kicking off the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Black History Month Series.
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