James Weldon Johnson and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

Some songs are sung once and forgotten. Others are passed from one generation to the next until they feel like they have always existed. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is one of those songs, and it began with a school principal in Jacksonville, Florida, who wanted his students to have something meaningful to sing. His name was James Weldon Johnson, and the song was only one part of a remarkable life.

A Florida childhood and an early start as an educator

James Weldon Johnson was born on June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida. He went on to study at Atlanta University, graduating in 1894.

He came back to Jacksonville and became principal of the Stanton School, a school for Black students in the city. It was a serious responsibility for a young man in his twenties, at a time when Black communities across the South were building their own schools, churches and newspapers in the face of segregation. Johnson believed education was one of the strongest tools his community had.

A song written for schoolchildren

In 1900, Johnson wrote the words to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. His younger brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, a trained musician, set the words to music. The first people to sing it were schoolchildren in Jacksonville.

The brothers did not set out to write an anthem. They wrote a piece for a school program. But the children who sang it remembered it, taught it to others, and carried it into churches and schools across the South. Over the years it spread by word of mouth and printed copies, and the NAACP embraced it. In time it became widely known as the Black national anthem, a title it still carries today.

The song’s staying power says something about how culture really travels. No marketing campaign made it famous. Ordinary people decided it mattered and kept singing it.

Broadway, diplomacy and books

Johnson never stayed in one lane for long. In the early 1900s he and his brother moved to New York, where they wrote songs for Broadway musicals and stage shows.

He then entered public service as a United States consul, serving in Venezuela and later in Nicaragua. While working abroad, he kept writing. In 1912 he published a novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, at first without his name on it. The book follows a narrator who can pass as white and wrestles with what it costs him to hide who he is. It became an important work of American literature.

His later books include The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), which helped bring Black poets to a wider audience; God’s Trombones (1927), a collection of poems inspired by the sermons of Black preachers; Black Manhattan (1930), a history of Black life in New York; and his autobiography, Along This Way (1933).

Leading the NAACP

Johnson joined the staff of the NAACP and, in 1920, became its executive secretary, the organization’s top staff role. He led it for about a decade. During those years he traveled, organized new branches, spoke out against lynching and pushed for federal anti-lynching legislation. He was also a strong supporter of the writers, artists and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance, and he helped open doors for many of them.

Later in life he taught at Fisk University in Nashville and lectured in New York. He died in 1938 after a car accident in Maine.

What his life can teach you

Johnson’s story is a reminder that one person can carry many gifts at once. He was a teacher, songwriter, novelist, diplomat, editor and civil rights leader. He did not wait to be given permission to grow in each of those areas. A few lessons stand out:

• Start where you are. His most famous words were written for a school event, not a grand stage.
• Work with the people around you. The song needed both brothers: one for the words and one for the music.
• Write for your community. He gave his own people something to sing, read and stand behind.
• Keep learning. He kept studying, kept writing and kept taking on new roles throughout his life.
• Use your voice for justice. His art and his activism grew from the same belief in human dignity.

Jonathan Anthony Burkett has written that writing helped him release and express how he was feeling, instead of holding everything inside. Johnson’s life shows how far words written with purpose can travel, sometimes much further than the writer ever imagined.

Keep the history singing

The next time you hear “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at a church service, a school assembly or a Black History Month program, remember that it started with a young principal and his brother in Jacksonville, writing something for children to sing. Share the story with someone younger than you, and let it remind you that your own words and music can matter too.

If you love music with meaning, explore Jonathan’s own songs on his music page.

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