A History of Hope
Monday, January 31, 2022
William H. Johnson, Lift Every Voice and Sing (1942-1944)
INVOCATION
This Is a Move by Tasha Cobbs
We are here for you,
come and do what you do.
We set our hearts on you,
come and do what you do.
This is a move.
We need a move.
STORY
In 1915, historian Carter G. Woodson, the son of parents who had been enslaved, established Negro History Week to honor the achievements and contributions of the African diaspora on American soil.
At the time of the first Negro Week celebration, racial tensions were rising, mostly in the south, but also throughout the country. There were 56 known lynchings of Black lives in 1915, and there would be far more racial terrorist attacks in the coming years. So, Negro Week not only gave Black people a reason to celebrate, it also rekindled hope in communities that had every reason to succumb to despair.
After the First World War ended, Black servicemen returned home to a country broiling in race riots and massacres. In 1924, a year after the Tulsa Massacre, Woodson and his college fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, expanded his vision to Negro History and Literature Week. Again, the goal was to instill hope. Addressing students at Hampton Institute, an all-Black college, he said, “We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.”
Tomorrow, February 1st, is the first day of Black History Month. But it began with that first Negro Week in 1915 when Black lives were depleted with domestic terrorism across our land. And yet the descendants of those Black lives are still here.
Sometimes we find our reason to hope by looking back.
BREATH PRAYER
INHALE
We shall
EXHALE
Overcome
A SONG OF PRAISE
Lift Every Voice and Sing by J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening 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 chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come 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 last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has 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.
BENEDICTION
Lord Open Unto Me by Howard Thurman
Open unto me, light for my darkness
Open unto me, courage for my fear
Open unto me, hope for my despair
Open unto me, peace for my turmoil
Open unto me, joy for my sorrow
Open unto me, strength for my weakness
Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion
Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins
Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness
Open unto me, love for my hates
Open unto me, Thy Self for myself
Lord, Lord, open unto me!
There is just SOMETHING about this:
"Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?"
That gets me every single time. Tears and a chin-up, simultaneously. The seenness of these lyrics.
🖤🖤🖤