"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 which evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land."
After its first recitation in 1900, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was communally sung within Black communities, while the NAACP began to promote the hymn as a "Negro national anthem" in 1917. It has been featured in 42 different Christian hymnals, and it has also been performed by various African American singers and musicians.
