James Weldon Johnson, Author at The Imaginative Conservative

About James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. In 1920, he was the first African American to be chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer, and served in that position from 1920 to 1930. Johnson established his reputation as a writer, known for his poems, novels, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

By James Weldon Johnson|2023-06-18T09:17:59-05:00June 18th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Freedom, Music, Poetry, Slavery|

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a song written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson, an American writer and civil rights activist, in 1900 and set to music by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson in 1905. A prayer of thanksgiving for faithfulness and freedom, evocative of the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom [...]