In “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the speaker rehearses the struggle to reclaim the Black past. Rather than see that past solely as hundreds of years of suffering and oppression, James Weldon Johnson reclaims that past as a source of strength.

The Black past is certainly a source of pain. Johnson’s speaker describes the past as “dark” (Line 7), “gloomy” (Line 19), and a period of “weary years” (Line 22). That past is one marred by violence—the “blood of the slaughtered” (Line 18)—and by the disappointment of failed promise: The gains from Emancipation in 1864 until the end of Reconstruction did not lead to permanent access to the ballot box and participation in state and federal legislative bodies. Given these realities, one could certainly see little to celebrate in the Black past.

However, the past isn’t just about suffering, because one can find the roots of Black resilience in those years as well. One source of endurance is Christian spirituality, which the past “taught” (Line 7) Black Americans. Another source of Black strength may be more literal. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was first performed/published in 1900, four decades after Emancipation, so it is entirely possible that some of the fathers who “sighed” (Line 16) for something like the present were literal fathers.