NEW ORLEANS — Grammy Award winner Ledisi will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before the Super Bowl on Sunday, part of a pregame lineup of artists with Louisiana ties.
Ledisi has earned international acclaim for her electrifying R&B performances, with 15 Grammy nominations and a win for Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Anything For You.” She has performed at the White House and the Kennedy Center, in addition to sold-out performances at iconic venues like Carnegie Hall.
The New Orleans native will be joined at the Caesars Superdome by Trombone Shorty and Lauren Daigle performing “America the Beautiful” and Jon Batiste performing the national anthem.
What is ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’?
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a hymn with lyrics written by James Weldon Johnson. The hymn is also known as “The Black National Anthem.”
According to the NAACP, where Johnson served as executive secretary at the time the hymn was written, the song was “prominently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.”
Johnson’s brother composed the music for the hymn, which was initially written as a poem.
The organization said it was first performed in public by a choir of 500 schoolchildren from the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, where Johnson was principal. It was performed to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.
It became the official song of the NAACP in 1919.
Grammy winner Audra Day performed the song at the Super Bowl in 2024.
‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ lyrics
Lift every voice and sing,Till earth and heaven ring,Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;Let our rejoicing riseHigh as the list’ning skies,Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,Bitter the chast’ning rod,Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;Yet with a steady beat,Have not our weary feetCome to the place for which our fathers sighed?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,Till now we stand at lastWhere the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,God of our silent tears,Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;Thou who hast 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.