Challenge: Upload a video of yourself or someone else (check out YouTube) singing #LiftEveryVoiceAndSing and tag it #LiftEveryVoiceChallenge.
I am mentally and emotionally exhausted. I am tired of seeing innocent black people losing their lives in situations where, if it had been someone of another race, they would still be alive. I am sick of seeing pictures and hearing language that vilify our dead instead of focusing on the unjust circumstances in which they died. I am tired of seeing tragedy after tragedy of our brothers and sisters being KILLED by those sworn to protect us.
I am sick of arguing with people who don’t understand how necessary it is to say that #BlackLivesMatter
and how stating that, does not mean that all lives do not matter. I am disheartened by my coworkers and acquaintances who do not mention any of the wrongs being committed because it’s’black people complaining again,’ or because they don’t understand our outrage.
I am exhausted by people who don’t understand why the racism tainting the #NationalAnthem is offensive.
Despite this exhaustion that weighs heavily on me, I think about our Black American history. Namely, I think about James Weldon Johnson who wrote the poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in 1899, and his brother John Rosamond Johnson who set the poem to music in 1905. The poem was written by James Weldon Johnson to honor a guest speaker, the notable Booker T. Washington, at the school in which Johnson was the principal. At his segregated school… Because at that time in America, we were too inferior to be integrated in schools with White Americans, as we are today.
We were too inferior for a lot of privileges that we have today. Yet, here we are. Still standing. Still black. Still proud.
As we heatedly debate #ColinKapernick’s controversial decision to first, sit, and now, take a knee during the National Anthem during NFL games, and as we watch the ripple effect that it is having among other athletes, I am reminded of Lift Every Voice and Sing. Dubbed as The Black National Anthem by the NAACP, it reminds me that we knew in the early 1900s that the National Anthem was not appropriate for us. Some of us may have forgotten, but our forefathers in our fight for civil rights, justice and equality have already understood us. Now, once again we must raise our voice.
The majority of us are not professional athletes that can show our solidarity by taking a knee during a football game, when all eyes are on us. I do challenge you, however, to contribute to this #LiftEveryVoiceChallenge by posting a video of you or someone else singing the Black National Anthem to your social media. Serve notice that you a change is needed in response to the police brutality that innocent Americans are enduring. Peacefully Lift Your Voice for our murdered brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children, family and friends who can no longer lift their’s. However, their names will not go silent because we will lift our voices for them.
Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Eric Garner (whose death only led to the man filming it being put in jail, not the officers), Korryn Gaines, Terrence Sterling, Terence Crutcher, India Kager…and the exhausting list of others.
