James Weldon Johnson was a person of many abilities. The Jacksonville native was a lyricist, poet, lawyer, civil rights activist, professor, and diplomat. He’s additionally the creator of “Raise Each Voice and Sing,” a poem-turned-song that has been often known as the Black nationwide anthem for greater than 100 years.
However the music is greater than that. It’s a hymn that’s a pledge of inclusion and unity. When Johnson wrote the music in 1900, he was the principal of Stanton Faculty, a segregated college in Jacksonville. That’s the place it debuted and was sung by 500 kids celebrating Black Historical past Month.
That is the time to honor James Weldon Johnson for his contributions to this nation.
It’s a music that was written to have fun the 91st anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s beginning and set to music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson. Final 12 months Alicia Keys sang the anthem on the Tremendous Bowl. Congress lately heard a invoice on Feb 4th by Rep. James Clyburn to attempt to make it a nationwide hymn. I help his perception that the music’s attraction is common and relevant to just about each ethnic background in America. This music is about inclusion, therapeutic and hope.
I work throughout the road from James Weldon Johnson Park right here in downtown Jacksonville. It was a beautiful second to see this park renamed in August of 2020. Then to have the Raise Each Voice and Sing park accredited as nicely is astonishing. We formally broke floor on this undertaking in February of 2021. The park was masterfully designed by panorama architect Walter Hood and can characteristic two bronze statues of James Weldon Johnson and his brother John Rosamond Johnson.
Now I’m taking part in a job to even have Johnson honored in Maine. Two years in the past, I took a visit to Wiscasset, Maine. I visited the positioning of the place he was sadly killed when the automobile that he and his spouse had been touring in was hit by a prepare. I went there with an thought to create a historic marker that may very well be positioned on the web site of the accident.
I ended up assembly all kinds of neighborhood leaders together with one who took me to go to the Abyssinian meetinghouse in Portland, Maine. It was the final secure home for enslaved individuals to cease at by the underground railroad earlier than they escaped to Canada.
Final 12 months laws was introduced to create a activity drive and to designate June 17 – Johnson’s beginning date – James Weldon Johnson Day within the state of Maine. I’m glad that 80 years after his demise, nationwide efforts are being made to honor him in Maine, the place his trip dwelling was, and naturally in Florida, his birthplace.
By way of the creation of the invoice, we had been capable of set up a activity drive within the identify of James Weldon Johnson. After a workshop there, all of us visited the positioning of the accident the place we had been capable of meet Reverend Al Nease who so graciously blessed the positioning.
As we transfer ahead with future initiatives, I look ahead to working with Ms. Sonya Dunn, a producer, who’s engaged on a documentary about James Weldon Johnson and the music “Raise Each Voice and Sing.”
I’m additionally wanting ahead to the completion of the park right here, which can convey cultural tourism to Jacksonville.
I imagine it’s secure to say that by the onerous work and perseverance of neighborhood leaders, politicians and the town of Jacksonville, like within the first stanza of the music, “we are going to proceed to march on till victory is gained.”
State Senator Tony Hill, retired.