A Life of "Firsts"
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Johnson’s career was a series of glass-shattering achievements:
Law: He was the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar since the Reconstruction era (1898).
Diplomacy: He served as U.S. Consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua under President Theodore Roosevelt.
Civil Rights: He became the first Black executive secretary of the NAACP (1920), where he led national campaigns against lynching.
Academia: In 1934, he became the first African American professor hired at New York University.
Selected Discography & Musical Works
Johnson’s musical legacy is defined by his collaboration with his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson. Together, they moved to New York in 1901 and wrote over 200 songs for Broadway, earning the nickname "Those Ebony Offenbachs."
"Under the Bamboo Tree" (1902): One of their biggest commercial hits.
"The Old Flag Never Touched the Ground": A patriotic popular song.
"Didn't He Ramble": A staple of early jazz and brass band repertoire.
The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925): An influential anthology compiled by the brothers to preserve Black sacred music.
The History of "Lift Every Voice and Sing"
The song that would become known as the Black National Anthem began as a poem. In January 1900, while serving as principal of the Stanton School in Jacksonville, James Weldon Johnson was asked to speak at a celebration for Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
Feeling that a mere speech wasn't enough, he wrote a poem, and his brother Rosamond set it to music. On February 12, 1900, it was performed for the first time by a choir of 500 schoolchildren.
Johnson later recalled the "agony and ecstasy" of writing the lyrics, particularly the second stanza, which speaks to the "stony road" and the "chastening rod" of the African American experience. Though the brothers moved on to Broadway, the children of Jacksonville kept singing it. By 1919, the NAACP officially adopted it as its rallying cry. Today, it remains a universal hymn of resilience, performed at everything from church services to the Super Bowl.
Watch: "Lift Every Voice and Sing"
For a moving rendition of the full song with lyrics, watch the video below:
Sources
NAACP: James Weldon Johnson Biography -
naacp.org Poetry Foundation: James Weldon Johnson Profile -
poetryfoundation.org Library of Congress: The History of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" -
blogs.loc.gov The James Weldon Johnson Foundation -
jamesweldonjohnson.org
This is what Black joy is. This is what representation and pride is. This is what this current administration would call “woke” or “DEI.”
— LanaQuest aka RosaSparks (@LqLana) February 6, 2026
Lift Every Voice and Sing the Black National Anthem was a poem written by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) in 1900. His brother later put the… pic.twitter.com/tOPCGrmovF
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