The Black National Anthem. ( Lift Every Voice and Sing)

Lift ev'ry voice and sing

'Til earth and heaven ring

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the list'ning 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

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

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" is a hymn with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and set to music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954). Written from the context of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery that evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land."

Premiered in 1900, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was communally sung within Black American communities, while the NAACP began to promote the hymn as a "Negronational anthem" in 1917 (with the term "Black national anthem" similarly used in the present day). It has been featured in 42 different Christian hymnals,and it has also been performed by various African American singers and musicians. Its prominence has increased since 2020 following the George Floyd protests; in 2021, then House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn sponsored a bill proposing that "Lift Every Voice and Sing" be designated as the "national hymn" of the United States.