"Facing the rising sun"

It wasn't until I was an adult that I learned that James Weldon Johnson's 1921 song, "Life Every Voice and Sing," is often referred to as the unofficial "black national anthem." When I was a child, it was simply that song that we all learned in elementary school and frequently sang at schoolwide assemblies in the auditorium. Not the anthem of the black kids but all the kids.

When I was in college I taught New Haven eighth graders in an after-school academic enrichment program. One day they discovered that I was headed after class to an election for the president of a campus organization, an election I really wanted to win--more than almost anything else in college. One of my students' response to my nervous energy, her offering of good will: "Well, we should sing." Then she started into "Life Every Voice and Sing," the other students and I following her.

In the wake of an infinitely more important presidential election, here are the words once more to "Lift Every Voice and Sing,"--not just the black national anthem but an anthem with potential relevance for all.


Life every voice and sing 'til 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 'til 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, 'til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.