Black National Anthem and Rev. Lowery (Barack Obama, March, states, 2009)

[Mattie Jo]

On January 20, 2009, Rev. Joseph Lowery quoted the third verse of the anthem at the beginning of his benediction at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America.
The first verse is the one most commonly heard.
Lift every voice and sing,
'Til 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 'til 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 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,
'Til 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.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...iLJowD95R4RTG0

[ovcatto]

You have erroneously written that Lowery is quoting from Lift Every Voice and Sing, often referred to as the black national anthem. What you should have written (although I doubt that it would serve your purposes) is that Lowery was quoting the third stanza of James Weldon Johnson's which was written to honor the birth of Abraham Lincoln. It would not become a song until five years later when his brother John Rosamand Johnson put it to music.