Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing

Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2023, 04:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing

brief bios:



John Rosamund Johnson was one of the more important figures in black music in the first part of the 20th century, usually in partnership with Bob Cole or with his brother James Weldon Johnson. While he is chiefly remembered today as the composer of the Black National Anthem, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," he had a varied career as a pianist, songwriter, producer, soldier, singer, and actor.

J. Rosamond Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on August 11, 1873. He began playing the piano at age four, studied at the New England Conservatory, and with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in London. He may have performed in 1896 with Isham Jones' Oriental America show in New York.

By the end of the 19th century, Johnson was teaching schoolchildren in the Jacksonville region. Around 1900 Johnson wrote and taught these schoolchildren "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing." Its popularity caused it to spread until it became the unofficial, then official, Black National Anthem.




James Weldon Johnson, African-American educator, journalist, diplomat, lyricist, poet, and human rights activist, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on June 17, 1871. Johnson founded a short-lived newspaper, Daily American, and passed the Florida bar examination, after which he worked briefly as a lawyer. He later moved to New York in 1902, where he performed in a musical trio, with his brother Rosamond and Bob Cole, and wrote the lyrics to more than 200 popular songs. Johnson also served as American Consul, appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, in Central and South America, from 1906 to 1913. After his consular service, Johnson joined the staff of the New York Age, which later led him to join the NAACP in 1916 to fight racial prejudice and discrimination. All of these activities he engaged in while perfecting his literary talents as a poet and writer. Johnson was a founder and senior member of the Harlem Renaissance guiding and influencing many of the younger writers of the period, among them Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Countee Cullen.

Actual 1931 Sheet Music by James Weldon Johnson
(from my collection)