May we forever stand: a history of the black national anthem

Distinguished historian Perry (Princeton) offers a breezy overview of the ways the song "Lift Every Voice and Sing" has been mobilized across 100 years of US freedom struggles. A concise biographical overview of the famous Johnson brothers who wrote the song--poet James Weldon Johnson and composer/singer J. Rosamond Johnson--places their achievement among those who "understood that each accomplishment was meaningful for the aspirations of the [African American] race as a whole." In chapter 1, the author offers a strong formulation of what he calls "black formalism" (distinct from the politics of respectability), i.e., "practices that were primarily internal to the black community, rather than those based upon a white gaze or an aspiration for white acceptance." Claiming that the singing of "Lift Every Voice" would become a consistent element of the ritual behaviors that were part of black formalism, Perry argues for the song's usefulness in the New Deal era and during the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement. Elegiac renderings of the ways that Martin Luther King Jr. mobilized the second verse lyrics precede a lament, in the final chapter, that black formalism declined in the 1990s, when "black associationalism was ... unpracticed for black adults who had come of age after desegregation." Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers.--Thomas F. DeFrantz, Duke University

In tribute to blacks' emancipation from slavery, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the words, and his brother John Rosamund Johnson (1873-1954) drafted the music for a poetic song first performed in 1900 to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Perry (African American studies, Princeton Univ.; Prophets of the Hood) follows the trajectory of the Johnsons' creation as it rose to become an anthem of black American identity and pride, and a reflection of black social and cultural history. Situating the song amid national and international political and social movements, Perry connects the gleam of its lyrical vision to black civic imaginings and institutional life during the 20th and into the 21st century. She explores the content and the lyrics as they relate to resilience and struggle within black communities, as people determined to "march on till victory is won." VERDICT Perry provides exegesis and exhortation in explaining how a song captured a culture, and in turn became a cultural captive held fast by emotional ties of a diverse people; hers is a work for adolescents and academics, indeed for any readers interested in at least glimpsing a sense of a pulsing, resilient black consciousness. Highly recommended.-Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In tribute to blacks' emancipation from slavery, James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) wrote the words, and his brother John Rosamund Johnson (1873–1954) drafted the music for a poetic song first performed in 1900 to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Perry (African American studies, Princeton Univ.; Prophets of the Hood) follows the trajectory of the Johnsons' creation as it rose to become an anthem of black American identity and pride, and a reflection of black social and cultural history. Situating the song amid national and international political and social movements, Perry connects the gleam of its lyrical vision to black civic imaginings and institutional life during the 20th and into the 21st century. She explores the content and the lyrics as they relate to resilience and struggle within black communities, as people determined to "march on till victory is won." VERDICT Perry provides exegesis and exhortation in explaining how a song captured a culture, and in turn became a cultural captive held fast by emotional ties of a diverse people; hers is a work for adolescents and academics, indeed for any readers interested in at least glimpsing a sense of a pulsing, resilient black consciousness. Highly recommended.—Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe