“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a poem that James Weldon Johnson wrote during the horrific Post-Reconstruction period in US history.

During Reconstruction—the term for the aftermath of the Civil War and Emancipation—Black Americans were jubilant that their long struggle to gain freedom was over. Federal troops occupied many of the former states of the Confederacy, ensuring that Black freedom became a reality. These troops enforced the civil rights Black Americans gained with the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution. Efforts like the Freedman’s Bureau ensured that Black Americans had the educational and financial tools they needed to make the transition from enslavement to citizenship.

During the presidential election of 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes bargained away the gains of 30 years of Reconstruction to win office. When federal troops withdrew from the Southern states, lynchings, poll taxes and tests, and restrictive Jim Crow laws forced Black Americans to become second-class citizens. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” serves as a reminder that Black Americans were living in a terrifying moment of backlash, but they had a cultural tradition of endurance and grit to draw on as they continued their fight for freedom.