Check out the words. Although the song was composed and sung in 1900 from a Negro perspective, it is not really so much a racial hymn as it is a song about the struggle for freedom, and it is a prayer to God. As I see it, the song is not separatist at all.
I don’t think that white people have a reason to fear this one. It is better than most of what their kids are getting in school. The words to the song actually end with a prayer for the country.
But wait until the atheists see this! They are the ones who will want it banned.
As to whether it should be sung every day, I am not sure. But it could be used as an occasional alternate to other patriotic songs.
Here at the public school in my NJ town, for the Holiday program, there are no explicitly Christian songs: only roasting ”Chestnuts Roasting ”, and other purely secular seasonal songs. But there were last year no less than three Hanuka songs, which seems a bit excessive, since first Hanuka is a rather minor Jewish holiday, and second, there are almost no Jewish students in the town. There were several Kwanzaa songs, one praising the virtue of “collective work.” All that Kwanzaa stuff is totally synthetic. Its garbage.
By contrast, “Lift Every Voice” is genuine, and far better than most compositions being produced today. I don’t think that it was written as a nationalist hymn, so much as a freedom song. Bear in mind that it was first performed just over 30 years after the Civil War. Freedom was the issue, as it is still today, — for all of us!
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is in our church’s hymnal and is occasionally used in our worship services. When we first sang it, I knew nothing of its history but noted the 1920 copyright date in our hymnal and figured it was inspired by World War I. Although I later learned that it was composed before the war, images of World War I still go through my mind when it is sung. Here are the words:
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 hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast 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.
Its not fear, its dedication to our unity as Americans. E Pluribus Unum, remember?
Its not fear, its dedication to our unity as Americans. E Pluribus Unum, remember?
Read the headline.
Which native land do you suppose the Black national anthem is referring to?
“may we forever stand
true to our God, true to our native land.”