At the recent State of the City Address in Denver, jazz singer Rene Marie got up to sing the national anthem, and did -- kinda. She actually sang James Weldon Johnson's Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, the black national anthem to the tune of Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner. I guess she felt she was being creative, but I didn't really dig it and neither did some other people who she later said "oops, my bad" to. ...
I really, really like Lift Ev'ry Voice because when I hear it, I can visualize the dignity of my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents and every black person who stood up and built a life for themselves in America despite the adversity they faced. It is a true nationalistic sentiment. And there's some amazing versions of the so-called Black National Anthem, like the one NPR News & Notes found from the 70s (video below).
To me there's no need to mix it with Key's tale of the British shelling of Fort McHenry, which only discusses one obscure incident in American history. Besides, I've always felt Katharine Lee Bates' America the Beautiful would make a better national anthem -- especially when sung by Ray Charles.
I remember having to memorize Weldon's lyrics when I was a kid, and it was a standard at any community function I went to. Funny thing is there's lots of people who have never heard of the song until now.
Pictures of the Week
A local man throws rocks at South African police in the Reiger Park informal settlement outside Johannesburg Monday May 19, 2008. Mobs rampaged through poor suburbs of Johannesburg in a frenzy of anti-foreigner violence over the weekend, killing at least 12 people, injuring dozens and forcing hundreds to seek refuge at police stations. The attacks capped a week of mounting violence that started in the sprawling township of Alexandra. Angry residents there accused foreigners, many of them Zimbabweans who fled their own country's economic collapse, of taking scarce jobs and housing. . (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
An unidentified woman looks through the shattered rear window of the car after it was hit by bricks outside a church in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday May 18, 2008. Mobs killed at least five people and injured 50 in anti-foreigner violence Sunday that has spread through poor suburbs of Johannesburg, police said. Foreigners, mainly Zimbabweans, were targeted, police spokeswoman Cheryl Engelbrecht said. More than 300 had sought refuge at the local police station, she said. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
Women from the Pro-independence Polisario Front rebel soldiers are seen during a military parade in the Western Sahara village of Tifariti, Tuesday May 19, 2008 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Polisario Army. After Spanish colonizers left Western Sahara in 1975, Morocco and Mauritania went to war over it. By 1979, Mauritania had pulled out and Morocco had taken over. But fighting continued between 15,000 Saharaui's Polisario guerrillas and Morocco's U.S. equipped army. A U.N. negotiated truce in 1991 called for a referendum on the region's future, but that vote never happened. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)
An unidentified man buys cooking oil on the streets of Highfileds in Harare, Zimbabwe Tuesday, May, 20, 2008. The cooking oil is made affordable by repackaging into smaller bottles and containers. A third of the population has fled Zimbabwe in recent years as the country confronts chronic shortages of food, medicine, fuel and cash precipitated by the government's seizure of white-owned farms that once produced enough to feed the country and export to neighbors. The government this month introduced a half-billion Zimbabwe dollar note in efforts to deal with runaway inflation that unofficial estimates put at 700,000 percent a year. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
Sen. Barack Takes a break on the campaign trail before giving a speech. (AP)
Actor Shia LaBeouf and a fan take a self portrait at the premiere of his new movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull",Tuesday, May 20, 2008, in New York. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)
GRESHAM, OR - MAY 18: Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is hugged by his wife Michelle Obama before he speaks during a campaign event at the Huntington Terrace Senior Center May 18, 2008 in Gresham, Oregon. Obama is campaigning through Oregon and Kentucky ahead of Tuesday's primaries. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
San Antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan holds the ball near the start of the Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference semifinal basketball series against the New Orleans Hornets, Monday, May 19, 2008, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
1. NOT ONLY WAS THE CONCEPT OF RIPPING OFF THE WORDS FROM ONE GREAT SONG AND GRAFTING THEM ONTO A GREAT MELODY A BAD PARODY; THE PERFORMANCE ITSELF WAS TIRED SOUNDING AND TACKY. MS. MARIE SOUNDED UNSURE, HER VERSION HAD NO GENUINE EMOTION, SOUNDED LIKE ACTING,NOT MUSIC,AND LACKED SOULFUL FEELING.JWJ's COMPOSITION OF GREAT LYRIC AND MELODY HAS BEEN A TRADITIONAL HYMN TO BLACK PEOPLE, AND IT STANDS ON ITS OWN
AS A HISTORICAL ODE TO THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA. IT IS A BEAUTIFUL MELODY, NOT TO BE SUBJECTED TO A DEMEANING RIPOFF. THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE DEPICTED IN THAT SONG,THE DESPAIR, THE DETERMINATION, THE HOPE, TYPIFIES EVERY BLACK PERSON'S FEELINGS IN THE STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN THIS GREAT LAND OF OURS AND THE LEGACY OF THEIR EXPERIENCE SHOULD NOT BE DILUTED OR CONFUSED IN ANY WAY. FRANCIS SCOTT KEY HAS BEEN IMMORTALIZED BY HIS INTERPRETATION OF THIS NATION'S STRUGGLE FOR IDENTITY, SO TOO SHOULD JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, FOR HIS VERSION OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IS TO BE REVERED AND ADMIRED AS IT STANDS. ALL WHO KNOW THAT ACHIEVEMENT OF SUCCESS IN THIS GREAT COUNTRY HAS NOT BEEN EASY WILL APPRECIATE THIS GREAT WORK OF ART.
p.g. hudson jr at 4:16PM on Jul 8th 2008