“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.”—“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” lyrics by James Weldon Johnson, music by John Rosamond Johnson
(Variously referred to as the “black national hymn” and even “the black national anthem,” this song was composed more than 100 years ago by James Weldon Johnson—writer, teacher, lawyer, diplomat, and executive secretary of the NAACP—and his brother John Rosamond, a popular composer of the time. Could they have ever envisioned a time when an African-American would be on the brink of winning the highest office in the land that had oppressed their ancestors? Perhaps, because their hymn, after all, celebrated the miraculous nature of God.)
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