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May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem
The twin acts of singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand tells an essential part of that story. With lyrics penned by James Weldon Johnson and music composed by his brother Rosamond, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was embraced almost immediately as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of black Americans. Since the song's creation, it has been adopted by the NAACP and performed by countless artists in times of both crisis and celebration, cementing its place in African American life up through the present day.
In this rich, poignant, and enjoyable work, Imani Perry tells the story of the Black National Anthem as it traveled from South to North, from civil rights to black power, and from countless family reunions to Carnegie Hall and the Oval Office. Drawing on a wide array of sources, Perry uses "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as a window on the powerful ways African Americans have used music and culture to organize, mourn, challenge, and celebrate for more than a century.
In this rich, poignant, and enjoyable work, Imani Perry tells the story of the Black National Anthem as it traveled from South to North, from civil rights to black power, and from countless family reunions to Carnegie Hall and the Oval Office. Drawing on a wide array of sources, Perry uses "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as a window on the powerful ways African Americans have used music and culture to organize, mourn, challenge, and celebrate for more than a century.
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First published February 19, 2018
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About the author
Imani Perry
35 books970 followersImani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton, first appeared in print at age 3 in the Birmingham (Alabama) News in a photo of her and her parents at a protest against police brutality. She has published widely on topics ranging from racial inequality to hip-hop and is active across various media. She earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a bachelor's degree from Yale University.
(from http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/ar...)
(from http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/ar...)
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 16, 2022
May We Forever Stand by historian Imani Perry tells the history of how the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” became the Black National Anthem and covers its rise and fall since its composition in the early 20th Century. The song was a collaboration effort by two brothers James Weldon Johnson who wrote the words and John Rosamond Johnson who composed the music. Perry mentions that the song tells “the story of black life in terms that were epic, wrenching, and thunderous”. Her central argument is that the anthem became a part of “Black formalism” which consists of a host of rituals, behaviors, and practices in Black institutions such as schools, colleges, churches, and social/political organizations.
Perry’s book explains the roots and structure of the song as well as how it became popular. The lyrics were inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem called “Recessional”. Organizations like the National Association of Colored Women’s Club helped make it popular in the Black community and in 1919 the NAACP deemed it the official song of the civil rights organization. Although the song was popular it was not without its critics. Black nationalists, like Marcus Garvey, did not care for it and preferred the song “Ethiopia, Land of Our Fathers” to be the anthem.
This book does a great job in revealing the effect the song had in Black history and culture throughout the early to mid-20th Century. It influenced artwork such as Augusta Savage’s harp sculpture and it caused Black students to develop self-worth and a sense of identity because it was a part of the daily practice in their segregated schools. Throughout the book, Perry shares first person accounts of how the song was integral to young Black people’s lives. However, the song was displaced temporarily during the 1950s/1960s Civil Rights Movement but found a new purpose during the Black Power movement of the 1970s. Perry argues that this also marked a shift from Black formalism to Black liberation.
The remainder of the book focuses on the song’s impact in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. The song continues to be sung by various notable artists and performed on special historical occasions. However, it seems that the song’s impact has waned from the early 20th Century. It has met conflict with the rise of hip hop and many Blacks today do not know the lyrics by heart. But the song always seems to get a new resurgence during times of turmoil in the Black community. Perry mentions how it was sung at various Black Lives Matter protests beginning in 2015. Since her book was published the song received newfound attention in 2020 after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. This goes to show how powerful the song still is even over 100 years after it was composed. It still provides comfort, hope, and liberation to a people who continue to be oppressed by the White supremacist structures in America.
Playlist of the song that I created:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
Perry’s book explains the roots and structure of the song as well as how it became popular. The lyrics were inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem called “Recessional”. Organizations like the National Association of Colored Women’s Club helped make it popular in the Black community and in 1919 the NAACP deemed it the official song of the civil rights organization. Although the song was popular it was not without its critics. Black nationalists, like Marcus Garvey, did not care for it and preferred the song “Ethiopia, Land of Our Fathers” to be the anthem.
This book does a great job in revealing the effect the song had in Black history and culture throughout the early to mid-20th Century. It influenced artwork such as Augusta Savage’s harp sculpture and it caused Black students to develop self-worth and a sense of identity because it was a part of the daily practice in their segregated schools. Throughout the book, Perry shares first person accounts of how the song was integral to young Black people’s lives. However, the song was displaced temporarily during the 1950s/1960s Civil Rights Movement but found a new purpose during the Black Power movement of the 1970s. Perry argues that this also marked a shift from Black formalism to Black liberation.
The remainder of the book focuses on the song’s impact in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. The song continues to be sung by various notable artists and performed on special historical occasions. However, it seems that the song’s impact has waned from the early 20th Century. It has met conflict with the rise of hip hop and many Blacks today do not know the lyrics by heart. But the song always seems to get a new resurgence during times of turmoil in the Black community. Perry mentions how it was sung at various Black Lives Matter protests beginning in 2015. Since her book was published the song received newfound attention in 2020 after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. This goes to show how powerful the song still is even over 100 years after it was composed. It still provides comfort, hope, and liberation to a people who continue to be oppressed by the White supremacist structures in America.
Playlist of the song that I created:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
May 30, 2019
A beautiful, understated call for a return to communal life through the thorough history and deeply researched lens of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which turns out to be a fantastic through line for the tenuous emotional & psychological bonds between Black & Brown America and America as its best self.
December 10, 2021
I quickly read through the majority of this while working on a paper exploring the history and theodicy of "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It was a phenomenal resource and a truly masterful piece of scholarship. Perry writes in a tone that seems to easily balance being engaging and expert on the subject at hand. It's obvious that robust research went into the writing process and so many different primary and secondary sources are interwoven beautifully with her own insightful analysis and interpolation. She includes explorations of the song as a spiritual hymn within Christian contexts as well as a rallying anthem for the Black community in America, while also grappling honestly with its more precarious position in contemporary culture today. Honestly wish I could've spent more time with it!
July 18, 2018
A fascinating look at how black civic, social and cultural history are inextricably tied to somg that became known as the Negro National Anthem.
April 16, 2022
On February 12th, 1900, when 500 students at the Edward M. Stanton School in Jacksonville, FL, debuted "Lift Every Voice and Sing," few in the audience could have guessed that they were hearing the first performance of what would become the Black National Anthem. But lyricist James Weldon Johnson—and his brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson—created the song with definite purpose. They were, as Imani Perry states in her book May We Forever Stand, “race men”; that is, any and all of their individual accomplishments were purposed to lift up their fellow African Americans.
Born during Reconstruction and raised during Jim Crow, the Johnson brothers never gave the same answer twice when asked about the song’s genesis. And they were asked often: “Lift Every Voice and Sing” immediately spread like wildfire across the south and became ensconced in African American culture. No wonder. Consider what the lyrics in the second verse would have meant to former slaves and their descendants struggling to create a life and culture in the murderously toxic Jim Crow south:
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,
’Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" provided black Americans with an affirmation of their cultural identity each time it was sung, which was often: graduation ceremonies, church services, and civic commemorations such as Emancipation Day, Juneteenth, May Day, and the birthday of Frederick Douglas. It became such an integral part of black formal culture, in fact, that within two decades the NAACP adopted it as their official theme song.
May We Forever Stand is a meticulously researched, thoroughly readable history of a single song that inspired generations of black Americans, beginning with Jim Crow all the way through to the Million Man March.
Born during Reconstruction and raised during Jim Crow, the Johnson brothers never gave the same answer twice when asked about the song’s genesis. And they were asked often: “Lift Every Voice and Sing” immediately spread like wildfire across the south and became ensconced in African American culture. No wonder. Consider what the lyrics in the second verse would have meant to former slaves and their descendants struggling to create a life and culture in the murderously toxic Jim Crow south:
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,
’Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" provided black Americans with an affirmation of their cultural identity each time it was sung, which was often: graduation ceremonies, church services, and civic commemorations such as Emancipation Day, Juneteenth, May Day, and the birthday of Frederick Douglas. It became such an integral part of black formal culture, in fact, that within two decades the NAACP adopted it as their official theme song.
May We Forever Stand is a meticulously researched, thoroughly readable history of a single song that inspired generations of black Americans, beginning with Jim Crow all the way through to the Million Man March.
August 27, 2020
While the book looks at the Anthem itself (the brothers who wrote it, some poetic and musical references, and their purpose) it's more of a history of the black community and how the song became a powerful symbol - then nearly faded, only to regain its power in recent decades. I learned a lot, and was quite moved by how the song reflected, comforted, and inspired so many people in good times and bad, during celebrations and mourning. FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
November 6, 2024
On its face, this book promises as an introduction to the cultural and historical background of the Black national anthem. It does this incredibly justice by bringing in effectively a secondary goal---a telling of a large chunk African American history in the 1900s. In doing so, it gives an extremely accessible crash course, which acquaints the reader with both notable names, cultural practices, and meetings without any significant assumptions on the reader's academic background. Of course, Perry is herself an academic, and on the academic level, her book calls for a re-prioritization of Blackness as a category in a way which often touches on, but does not substantively engage with, various other academic perspectives (primarily more Marxist ones). That said, while the books academic qualities are themselves a bit weak, Perry's history is itself magnificent, and given the accessible nature of the book, I find it extremely fitting that the academic call for considering Blackness is mirrored, in her afterword, with an explicit and vernacular call for a reaffirmation of (black) associational life and community.
October 6, 2022
I didn't know about this song until recently. How could that be? This book, written by Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton traces the history of the song, from its creation by two brothers in the early 20th century through its adoption by the Black community, NAACP, its drop in popularity during the 1970s and its current rise in prominence since the George Floyd protests. It is a book rich in history and culture, and befitting its academic origin, well documented.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
Read
December 13, 2019Read most, skimmed some. Learned a lot. Kept humming to myself
November 28, 2022
This book is about so much more than you might think it is! I've been reading Professor Perry since before she published her first book. What a fine scholar she is.
July 21, 2023
It's inspirational
April 8, 2025
An important read and necessary in today's time!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews