Vernis & Bowling recognizes the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday as a Day On, Not a Day Off. As many celebrate the holiday, there will be one prominent message heard as a song or poem, and that is the Black National Anthem. This song originally was created by brothers James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson to celebrate the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, but since 1919 it was adopted by the NAACP as the Negro National Anthem. The song reflects the words and passions of Martin Luther King, Jr. and has become a rallying cry for unity, equality and justice.
See What makes ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ so iconic
Black National Anthem
Lift Every Voice and Sing
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 ’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 died.
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 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.