Nurture your Nature

🏴 Lift Every Voice and Sing ⚑ [13+]

There is no emoji for African Americans... or Native Americans, or Aboriginal Australians; not for their existence, not for their communities.

So chose between these two! 🏴 ⚑

Rant

But we have 🫎 ☸️ 🕌 ☦️ 🇻🇦. The Vatican is smaller than the African American community Living in any major US city. Yes, I know that there are millions of Catholics; but, how many symbols does ONE religion merit?

And moose? We do have them in Montana; but... really?

And... by-the-way... all wedding emojis are Caucasian, which must be capitalized; so, that gives me permission to capitalize all sub-groups of Americans.

So... today's choice of song is "Lift every voice and sing." It's a mainstay of any Juneteenth (no flag) observance. Since I lived (for many years) in an African-American community I got to sing it.

In reading the lyrics closely, please note the lack of anger. This is a song of hope. It's message is as American as "America the Beautiful"

Which was used in a Coca Cola commercial at Super Bowl 2014.

The controversy lies not in the song choice of “America the Beautiful,” but how it was presented and sung with the multilingual accompaniment of this immensely patriotic song. It was a more honest portrayal of America: an eclectic diversified representation, compared to a lot of other commercials that try to ideologically represent American citizens and our perceived values in a finite form of representation. Stereotypically, country music, pickup trucks, the American flag waving in the wind and a cold one seemingly is what is represented as a common “American” experience.

Sound familiar? Read this:

Outrage? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/voices-the-conservative-outrage-over-the...
History: https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/the-story-of-the-black-national-ant...

Regardless, Sheryl Lee Ralph was awesome!

One personal note though: she sings it in a very slow tempo.

This is the link as the NFL, a font of great wi$dom, has blocked embedding it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Qzu6r40_4

So this a cappella version will have to do:



The Negro National Anthem: "Lift Every Voice and Sing"
by James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938)

Originally written by Johnson for a presentation in celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. This was
originally performed in Jacksonville, Florida, by children. The popular title for this work is:

'THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM'

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

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 sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land