Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
My daughters will testify that I don’t play regarding “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” aka “The Black national anthem.”
They were young schoolgirls when I began drilling them on the lyrics over and over — ad nauseam by their account — until they could sing the song from memory with nary a flub. Of course, they had to know all three verses. Whenever we’re somewhere where the audience sings the BNA, I’m that person who keeps going a while longer if we stop after the first verse.
Stony the road we trod! Bitter the chast’ning rod! Felt in the days when hope unborn had died!
I know it’s a bit long. But, dammit, how often do we sing it? We can’t take an extra couple of minutes to get through the entire song a few times every year? Those words should mean that much to us, what with our weary feet now in the place that our ancestors sighed (and died) for.
We should ALWAYS sing the whole thing and do it without the need for handouts. You know every word of some songs and the BNA should be on that list.
So, yeah, I’m kinda radical about James Weldon Johnson’s masterful summation of Black people catching hell in America and looking forward to better days. It’s not meant to be performative entertainment; it’s a solemn ode conveying our pain and hope; it’s not to be played with.
Which means it has no business being sung at the Super Bowl, the NBA All-Star Game or any other mass gathering where it doesn’t reflect most attendees’ history.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” should be reserved for voices in Black spaces, where the heartfelt message matters.
I never thought I’d agree with MAGA crackpots on anything, but here we are.
They lost their minds Sunday when Andra Day sang the BNA before Kansas City beat San Francisco, giving the song her own twist (and regretfully…
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