'Lift Every Voice And Sing': The True Story Of The Black National Anthem

He Wrote The Black National Anthem—Then Became A Diplomat James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938): Wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing" February 12, 1900, for 500 schoolchildren at Lincoln's birthday celebration, Jacksonville, Florida. Brother J. Rosamond Johnson composed music. Song spread orally across South within 20 years. NAACP adopted as official anthem (1919). But Johnson's achievements multiplied: First Black man admitted to Florida Bar since Reconstruction (1898). President Theodore Roosevelt app