That song is not the black national anthem. Someone just decided to call it that. It’s a beautiful song that worships God and is not the slightest bit revolutionary. I wish everyone would just relax about this.
Great. Sing it in church, then.
You are correct, it is a nice song. But, you say, it is not a national anthem and it is important to note that the wrong people are pushing it for the wrong reasons.
It is very much like the open borders for anyone on the globe and encouraging, facilitating and subsidizing their arrival - all for 'humanitarian purposes'. Much of that is done through religious organizations. In fact, it is clearly a political means of "remaking" our country.
See my tagline and google the sheriff for a better understanding.
How would you like it if you had guests for supper, and after you led prayer in saying Grace, one of the guests stood up and announced that he would now be reciting a different prayer (implying that your saying Grace somehow wasn't "inclusive" enough)?
This all isn't occurring in a vacuum, devoid of context. "Happy Days Are Here Again!" is also a "beautiful song that is not the slightest bit revolutionary." But to sing it at a funeral, just as the casket is being lowered into the earth, would have certain, umm, implications.
For more than a century, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" has been promoted as a "Negro" (later: "Black") national anthem. It is dripping with political implications. It's not "just another song."
Regards,
It was also written by a Republican. Why so many here are willing to allow the left to take this from us is beyond me.
It is, indeed, a beautiful hymn--written before hymn-writing became a lost art--and it's in our hymnal. When we first performed it at our church, I thought, judging from the lyrics, that it was likely inspired by World War I and probably written during the Versailles Conference. However, it was written much earlier.
I agree. While it was written from the perspective of African Americans in the late 19th century, the hymn is a prayer of thanksgiving to God as well as a prayer for faithfulness and freedom, with imagery that evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land." It speaks to all Americans in that respect. It was written in commemoration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, but it can also be seen as respecting all who died in the Civil War and the Revolutionary War:
Come to the place For which our fathers died. We have come, over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, 'Til now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
And it states that America is our, all of our American cititzen’s Native Land.
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.