Editing Lift Every Voice and Sing (section)

==History==
James Weldon Johnson, Principal of the [[Edwin M. Stanton]] School in [[Jacksonville, Florida]], had sought to write a poem in commemoration of [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s birthday. However, amid the ongoing [[Civil rights movement (1896–1954)|civil rights movement]], Johnson decided to write a poem which was themed around the struggles of African Americans [[Nadir of American race relations|following the Reconstruction era]] (including the passage of [[Jim Crow laws]] in the [[Southern United States|South]]). "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was first recited by 500 students in 1900. His brother [[J. Rosamond Johnson]] would later set the poem to music.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Behind the lyrics of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing'|author-first1=Faith|author-last1=Karimi|author-first2=AJ|author-last2=Willingham|date=10 September 2020|url=https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/09/us/lift-every-voice-and-sing-trnd/|access-date=February 6, 2022|publisher=CNN}}</ref><ref name="James2013">{{cite news|last1=James|first1=Timothy|date=Winter 2013|title=The Story of the Black National Anthem, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing", Written by James Weldon Johnson|volume=1|work=Selah|issue=1|url=http://www.nationalconvocation.org/Portals/NC/SELAH%202013%20WINTER%20WEB%202-7-13.pdf|url-status=dead|access-date=February 16, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150216231459/http://www.nationalconvocation.org/Portals/NC/SELAH%202013%20WINTER%20WEB%202-7-13.pdf|archive-date=February 16, 2015}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite news|title=Till Victory Is Won: The Staying Power Of 'Lift Every Voice And Sing'|language=en|publisher=NPR |url=https://www.npr.org/2018/08/16/638324920/american-anthem-lift-every-voice-and-sing-black-national-anthem|access-date=February 6, 2022}}</ref>

After the [[Great Fire of 1901]] in Jacksonville, the Johnsons moved to New York City to pursue a career on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]. In the years that followed, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was sung within Black communities; Johnson wrote that "the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country".<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite magazine|title=A History of the 'Black National Anthem'|url=https://time.com/5864238/black-national-anthem/|access-date=February 5, 2022|magazine=Time|language=en}}</ref>