Again, back to the resolutions for 2012. One of my resolutions is to be more patient and to listen more. While I'd like to think I'm a relatively calm person I find myself loosing patience and my go to reaction is salty language and a snappy tongue. NYC is certainly salty enough without added help from me.
Now, if anyone had a right to be a little salty and snappy it's someone who is being persecuted in a violent and inhumane way. However, MLK was able to speak with fire in a peaceful way. Incredible when you think about it because who REALLY is able to to that?!
Many of you know that I'm the Organist and Choir Director at a Lutheran Church in Manhattan. I write a weekly column for the church blog, e-newsletter and bulletin called "Notes From the Bench" where I talk about the history of different hymns, the history of music in the church and random music facts. One of the hymns that I talked about this week Lift Every Voice and Sing is not only a personal favorite of mine but also played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. Below is an excerpt from the column. The entire column can be found here. It's posted weekly and if you are music history nerd or just curious about music history check it out.
To conclude our mini festival we are singing one of my favorite hymns, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" in honor of Dr. Marthin Luther King Jr. We have sung this hymn in his honor before on the commemoration of his death date, April 4th. However, because he was born on January 15th and in conjunction with the American civil holiday honoring him let's raise our voices to aloud to a this man of justice who preached nonviolence and demanded that love be returned for hate. "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was first publicly performed as a poem as part of a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday on February 12, 1900 by 500 school children at the segregated Stanton School. The principal, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the words to introduce the honored guest Booker T. Washington. The poem was later set to music by Johnson's brother John in 1905. Singing of this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future because it allowed them to subtly speak against racism and Jim Crow laws. In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as "The Negro National Anthem" and by the 1920's copies of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals. This hymn is referenced across the board in popular culture including in Maya Angelou's 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,; on a Melba Moore recording along with other R&B artists Anita Baker, Stephanie Mills, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Brown, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osborn and Howard Hewett; by gospel artists Bebe & CeCe Winans, Take 6 and The Clark Sisters and other contemporary versions by Linda Tillery, Opera Singer Leontyne Price and the Cultural Heritage Choir. On January 20, 2009, the Rev. Joseph Lowery used a near verbatim recitation of the song's third stanza to begin his benediction at the inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama.
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