by Imani Perry
European immigrants, access to high school, 73
Evans, Mari, 198
Evanti, Lillian, 115
Evers, Medgar, 166
Evers, Merlie, 203
Fairbanks, Evelyn, 17
Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), 116, 125, 127
Farnham, R. L., 35
Farrakhan, Louis, 216
Fascism: opposition to, 61; Jim Crow compared to, 111, 116; and American racial liberalism, 112; analogies between antifascism and antiracism, 114, 115, 128, 129–30, 136; and World War II, 116, 121, 122, 130, 138–39
Fast, Howard, Freedom Road, 125
Fauset, Jessie, 39, 45; There Is Confusion, 43
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 126, 129, 194
Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB), 59
Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 59
Federal Office of Education, 112
Federal Writers Project, 66
Fellowship of Reconciliation, 116, 162
Feminists, 194, 209
Femmes de France, 233n21
Ferguson, Alice L., 9
Ferguson, Mo., 223–24
Ferguson, Pauline V., 9
FESTAC 77, 200, 222
Fieldston School, New York, 100
“Fight the Power,” 212
Fish, Kenneth, “More ‘Soul’ Needed in White Teachers,” 181
Fisk Jubilee Singers, 113
Fisk University, 75, 80, 99, 208
Flack, Roberta, 211
Florida, 2, 3, 4, 74. See also Jacksonville, Fla.
Florida Baptist Academy, 4, 38
Florida Negro State Teachers Association, 74
Floyd, Silas: Floyd’s Flowers, or Duty and Beauty for Colored Children, 106; The Gospel of Service and Other Sermons, 106; The Life of Reverend Charles T. Walker DD, 106
Folk revival movement, 147–48, 242n13
Forbes, George, 210
Forté, John, 214
Fort Valley State University, 80, 117
Franklin, Aretha, 189, 197, 203
Frazier, E. Franklin, 60, 65–66, 86
Frederick Douglass High School, Baltimore, 102
“Free at Last,” 41
Freedmen’s Bureau, 3
Freedom: blacks striving for, 1; Frederick Douglass’s narratives of, 6, 45, 47; and black culture, 10, 45; racism circumscribing, 14; and promise of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 17, 18, 44, 84, 88, 97, 111, 219; and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as hymn, 20; and black migration, 26; and pageantry, 42; movement and literacy tied to, 45, 138; and black political life, 52, 95, 130, 133–34, 139, 145, 146, 161, 168, 175, 194, 201, 202, 207, 209, 222; and Martin Luther King Jr., 141; and black artistic production, 162. See also Emancipation Day
Freedom (newspaper), 126
Freedom Singers, 150–51
Freedom’s People (radio documentary), 113–14
Freedpeople, 12
Freeman, Morgan, 223
Freestyle exhibition (2001, Studio Museum, Harlem), 219–20
Frissell, Hollis Burke, 77
Frye, Marquette, 161
Frye, Ronald, 161
Fugees, 213–14
Fuller, Meta, Ethiopia Awakening, 42
Gaines, Charles, 57
Gangsta rap, 213
Garlington, Elizabeth, 96
Garnet-Patterson School, Washington, D.C., 113
Garvey, Amy Ashwood, 123
Garvey, Marcus Mosiah, 26, 27–36, 68, 91, 185
Garveyism, 37, 62, 167
Gaston, Mrs. A. G., 145
Gate City Free Kindergarten Association, 24
Gaye, Marvin: “What’s Goin’ On,” 197; “The Star-Spangled Banner,” 214; “Troubleman,” 222
G. C. Murphy Co., 154
Gender studies programs, 194
General Motors, 172
Georgetown University, 208
Georgia, 14, 24, 74, 121. See also specific cities
Georgia Supreme Court, 73
Gettsyburg Address, 153
Ghana, 136, 143, 155, 173, 199
Gillespie, Dizzy, 82–83
“God Bless America,” 116
“Go Down, Moses,” 114, 154
Goebbels, Joseph, 129
Golden, Thelma, 219–20
Goodman, Andrew, 205
Gospel music, 47, 50–51, 83
Graduation programs, 16, 36, 80, 85, 94, 108–9, 115, 215
Grambling University, 189
Gray, Freddie, 224
Gray, Walter, 68
Gray, William, 88, 206
Great Depression, 58–60, 64, 66, 121, 122
Great Society, 163, 209
Green, Al, 211
Green, Willa Lee, 85
Green, William, 56
Greensboro, N.C., sit-in, 146–47, 152
Gregory, Dick, 166, 206
Grenada, 199, 207
Griffith, Michael, 212
Grillo, Evelio, 84
Guanaian Independence, 185
Guinea, 182, 199
Guinn, Dorothy, 42
Haines Normal and Industrial Institute, Augusta, Ga., 93–94, 95, 100
Haiti, 20, 35–36, 37, 39, 149, 150, 213–14
Hampton, Dina, 54
Hampton, Fred, 208
Hampton University, 75, 77
Handy, W. C., 48–49, 50, 68, 71, 114, 154, 172; “Memphis Blues,” 49, 50; “St. Louis Blues,” 49; “AfraAmerican Hymn,” 50; “Beale Street Blues,” 50; St. Louis Blues film, 50
Hansberry, Lorraine, 126, 197
Hansberry, William Leo, 39, 123
The Harder They Come (film), 177
Harlem, N.Y., 32
Harlem Casino, 34
Harlem Christian Youth Council, 99
Harlem Community Art Center, 68, 70
Harlem Renaissance, 42–45, 49, 56, 66
Harlem Riots, 163
Harper, Michael, 198–99
Harris, Evangeline E., The Family, 96
Harvard University, 208
Hastie, William H., 78
Hatcher, Richard, 201, 206
Hathaway, Donny, 197
Hawkins, Coleman, 188
Hayden, Robert, 198–99
Hayes, Isaac, 216
Hayes, Roland, 97
Hayford, J. E. Caseley, Ethiopia Unbound, 39
Hays, Lee, 130
Height, Dorothy, 99, 206
Henderson, Donald, “Negro Militancy is Not New,” 167
Henderson, Fletcher, 49
Henderson, Mildred, 142
Hendrix, Jimi, 214
Henson, Matthew, 93
Heptones, 197
Herskovits, Melville, 39
Heyward, Dubose, 45–46
Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, 8, 70
Highlander Folk School, 147–48, 242n13
Hill, Andrew, 188
Hill, Lauryn, 214
Hip-hop, 212–14, 220
Hirohito (emperor of Japan), 116
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs): connection with K–12 education, 79; and ritual singing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 89, 189; Thurgood Marshall attending, 102–3; funding of, 121; and SNYC, 127; protests of conservative rules of, 168; advantages of attending, 180; and black formalism, 198–99, 224; Tony Brown’s advocacy of, 207. See also specific colleges and universities
Hitler, Adolf, 116, 129
Holiday, Billie, “Strange Fruit,” 139
Holsaert, Eunice Spelman, 150
Holsaert, Faith, 149–50
Homiletics, 8
Hood, Linda Mason, 231n38
Hoover, J. Edgar, 35
Hoover, Mary Rhodes, 182, 183–84
Hoover, Robert, 183–84
Hope, John, 30
Horton, James, 236n61
Horton, Myles, 242n13
Hotel Theresa, Harlem, 163
House Un-American Activities Committee, 131–32
Houston, Charles Hamilton, 78, 102, 121
Howard Law School, 103
; Howard University, 208, 224
Howard University Gospel Choir, 223
Hudson, Mildred, 83–84
Hudson, Willie Ester Wright, 83
Hughes, Bessie, 154
Hughes, Langston, 80, 97, 113; Dreamkeepers, 42–43; “Youth,” 42–43; Popo and Fifina, 92; “The Emperor of Haiti,” 149; “Song for My People,” 167; “Daybreak in Alabama,” 177
Humphrey, Hubert, 127
Hunt, Ida Gibbs, 31–32, 233n21
Hunt, William Henry, 32
Hunter, Alberta, 49
Hunton, Addie, 30, 39, 135
Hunton, Alphaeus, “Upsurge in Africa,” 135–36
Hunton, Dorothy, 135
Hurd, Hugh, 149
Hurston, Zora Neale, 22, 103–4
Hyanes, Roy, 187–88
Hymnody, 20
“If My Jesus Wills,” 147
“I’ll Overcome Someday,” 147
Imagined community: and patriotism of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 17; and pageantry, 42; and larger black world, 84–85; and Montgomery Bus Boycott, 140
Imperial club, 145
Imperialism: opposition to, 61; resistance to criticism of, 112; Alphaeus Hunton on, 136; and black power, 165; Martin Luther King Jr. on, 170. See also Colonialism
Inclusion, 112, 114, 185–86. See also Integration
Indigenous liberation movement, 209
Ingram, Rosa, 137
Innis, Roy, 202
Integration: and NAACP, 36, 104; and residential security maps, 59; school desegregation, 103–6, 146, 179, 180, 181, 190, 193–94; losses of, 104, 178–81, 190, 194, 222; white resistance to, 105, 119–20, 180, 193, 202; and cosmopolitanism of black school culture, 113; and Franklin Roosevelt, 116; militant integrationism, 117; and Thurgood Marshall, 121; and Mary Church Terrell, 137; and Children’s Crusade of 1963, 152, 156; rejection of false hope of, 167, 176; nominal integration, 173; and “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 179, 189, 214; lack of truly racially integrated institutions, 195; and black associationalism, 217
Inter-communal Youth Institute, 176–77
International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, 32–33
“The Internationale,” 55
International Labor Defense of the Communist Party, 235n61
Italy, 60
Jackson, A. H., 118–19
Jackson, James Thomas, “Daybreak,” 177–78
Jackson, Jesse, 192–93, 202, 206, 208
Jackson, Jimmie Lee, 157, 160
Jackson, Maynard, 202, 203
Jackson, Miss., 166, 167
Jackson State University, 198–99
Jacksonville, Fla., 2–3, 4, 7, 12–13, 19, 22
Jamaica, 27–28, 35
James, C. L. R., 123
James Weldon Johnson Elementary School, St. Louis, Mo., 100
James Weldon Johnson Institute, Emory University, xiii
Japan, 117
Japanese Americans, 111
Jazz Messengers, 187
Jazz music, 50, 51, 187–88
Jean, Wyclef, 214
Jeanes, Anna T., 75, 77–78, 82, 87
Jet, 229n1
Jim Crow: establishment of, 3; and nadir of black civic life, 5; and black organizations, 6; brutality of, 8–9, 20; and Jacksonville fire, 13; and sexual assault of black women, 14; and black political life, 27, 28, 116; and Crisis, 29; injustices of, 57; and funding for black schools, 73; in rural areas, 77; and out-of-school educational institutions, 101; fascism compared to, 111, 116; exclusions of, 222. See also Segregation
“John Brown’s Body,” 96
John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen, 75, 76, 82, 107
Johns, Vernon, 85
Johnson, Charles, 89–90
Johnson, Charles Spurgeon, 66
Johnson, Georgia Duncan, “The Gift of Song,” 44
Johnson, Grace Nail, 31, 69, 99
Johnson, Helen Louise Dillet, 1–2, 3
Johnson, James (father), 1–2
Johnson, James Weldon: as lyricist of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” xiii, xvi, 1, 4, 6–7, 12–13, 15, 16, 17, 18–20, 21, 37–38, 46, 63; early life of, 1, 3; education of, 3–4, 30, 79; admission to bar in Florida, 4; as educator, 4, 5, 6, 90; and black civic life, 5; newspaper founded by, 5; as race man, 6; on popularity of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 12–13; collaborations with brother, 13; departure for New York, 13; Toloso, 21; and NAACP, 30–31, 32; and Pan-African Congresses, 32; “Self-Determining Haiti,” 35–36; on Black National Anthem, 37–38; and Harlem Renaissance, 42; Thomas Gilbert Standing on, 63; death of, 70, 99; on black children, 72; membership in NATCS, 74; poetry of, 80, 102; role in development of black children, 86; The Book of American Negro Poetry, 90; The Book of American Negro Spirituals, 90; The Second Book of Negro Spirituals, 90; and Spence Chair of Creative Literature, Fisk University, 99; “Black and Unknown Bards,” 102; and mass media coverage of blacks, 113; and Black Heritage postage stamps series, 214
Johnson, John Rosamond: as composer of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” xiii, xvi, 1, 4, 7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19–20, 21, 22, 38, 46, 231n38; early life of, 1, 3; education of, 3, 4, 21, 22, 79; as educator, 4, 5, 6, 90; and black civic life, 5; as race man, 6; and Bob Cole, 13; collaborations with brother, 13; departure for New York, 13; Toloso, 21; “Why They Call American Music Ragtime,” 21–22; as assistant composer of Star of Ethiopia pageant, 40; and W. C. Handy, 49, 50; and ASCAP anniversary celebration of 1939, 70–71; The Book of American Negro Spirituals, 90; Rolling Along in Song, 90; The Second Book of Negro Spirituals, 90; Shoutsongs, 90; and Negro History Week programs, 93; death of, 103
Johnson, LaFrances Chapman, 143
Johnson, Lyndon, 158–59, 161, 162, 163
Johnson, Mildred Floyd, 106
Johnson Publishing Company, 229n1
Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR), 61
Jones, Charlie, 150
Jones, Claudia, 129–30
Jones, Dorothy Posey, 140
Jones, LeRoi. See Baraka, Amiri
Jones, Lois Mailou, 101
Jordan, Barbara, 204
Jordan, Joe, 71
Jordan, Vernon E., 205–6, 215
Joseph E. Hill School, Philadelphia, 195
Journal of Negro Education, 103
Journal of Negro History, 92, 195
Joyner, Tom, 215
Judgment at Nuremburg (film), 157
Juke joints, 47–48
Julian, Percy, 102, 154
Julius Rosenwald Fund, 68, 75, 76, 80, 87, 107
Juneteenth ceremonies, 36
Juvenile Police Project, 114
Kansas City, Kans., 116
Kansas Plaindealer, 38
Karenga, Maulana, 184
Keith-Walgreen Drug Store, 154
Kennedy, John F., 164
Kentucky Fried Chicken, 211
Kentucky Negro Educational Association, 74, 86
Kentucky Negro Educational Association Bulletin, 86–87
Kentucky Supreme Court, 79
Kenyatta, Jomo, 123
Key, Francis Scott, 178
Key, Vivian Schuyler, 51–52, 138
Killens, Grace, 148
Killens, John, 148
Kilmer, Joyce, “Trees,” 113
Kilpatrick, James, 154
Kilson, Martin, 98
King, Christine, 95
King, Coretta Scott, 202, 203, 206
King, Martin Luther, Jr.: and “We Shall Overcome,” 82; education of, 95, 110; on black citizenship, 110–11; “The Negro and the Constitution,” 110–11; idealization of, 133; March on Washington speech, 141, 155; and Montgomery Bus Boycott, 141–42; and Ghanaian independence, 143; and Louise Shropshire, 147; Maya Angelou on, 148; on radio stations, 152; and leadership of civil rights movement, 152, 154, 156, 157–58, 161, 168; eulogy for James Reeb, 157–58; Montgomery speech, 159–60; and Open Housing marches, 166; Where Do We Go from Here?, 168–69, 202; and Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, 171–72; Mountaintop speech, 172, 218; assa
ssination of, 172–73, 200; and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at commemorative events for, 186, 192, 210
King, Martin Luther, Sr., 121
Kipling, Rudyard, “Recessional,” 17–18, 19
Knox Institute, Ga., 81
Krigwa Players, 51
Ku Klux Klan, 83, 155, 160
Kwanzaa, 184, 185, 196
Lafayette County Training School, Ark., 107–8
La Nair, Ella, 9
Landis, Kennesaw Mountain, 132
Laney, Lucy, 93–95
LaVilla neighborhood, Jacksonville, 13, 22
Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, 68, 168
Lawrence, Jacob, 68
Lawyers Guild of the Communist Party, 57
League of Colored Women, 14
Lee, Harrison E., “The Forthcoming Day,” 118
Lee, J. R. E., 73–74
Lee, Robert A., 143
Lee, Spike, 212
Leftist politics: rise of, 27; and working-class blacks, 52, 54, 56; distinction between mainstream white Left and black Left, 54–55, 56; and “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” 56, 118, 129–30; and Great Depression, 58–60, 66; and NAACP’s second Amenia Conference, 59–60; and black culture, 61; appeal to black American population, 112, 127; on black identity, 118; and W. E. B. DuBois, 122, 124, 130; and SNYC, 125; Harry Truman’s suspicions of, 126; NAACP’s disengagement from, 127; and black freedom movement, 130, 133–34, 139; and Paul Robeson, 130, 144–45; and leftist magazines, 134–37; and Vernon Jordan, 205–6; and Ronald Reagan, 206
Leland, Mickey, 206
“Let My People Go,” 145
Lewis, Norman, 68
Liberalism: postwar liberalism, 126–27, 138. See also Racial liberalism
Liberia, West Africa, 37, 85
Life magazine, 158
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” (Johnson and Johnson): as Black National Anthem, xii, xiii, 1, 9, 15–17, 24, 33, 34, 37–39, 45, 55, 60, 62–63, 65, 81–82, 154, 167, 173, 177, 225; and black power, xii, 163, 166, 167, 168, 173–83, 184, 185, 187–91, 193, 202, 212; social and cultural history of, xiii–xiv; and belonging, xiv; and black political life, xiv, 26, 47, 55–56, 58, 99, 109, 116, 125, 129–30, 134–35, 139, 140, 141–42, 145, 202, 203–4, 205, 206, 208–9, 210, 225; role in black educational life, xiv, 72–73, 78–79, 80, 81–89, 93, 96, 97, 98–99, 100, 104, 109, 115, 149, 150, 180–81; lyrics of, xvi; as James Weldon Johnson’s poem to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday, 6–7; children of Stanton School singing, 7; and black formalism, 7–10, 12–13, 15–16, 22, 35, 42, 47–48, 79, 81–82, 90, 113, 192, 199, 222, 225; popularity of, 12–13, 17, 22–23, 38–39, 55; and ritual practices, 12–13, 36–37, 40, 47, 82, 84, 87, 89, 105–6, 214; Victoria Matthews’s article in Colored American, 15; and Emancipation Day, 15–16; as signifier of black identity, 26, 42, 46, 51, 55, 56, 72–73, 84, 90, 93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 109, 194, 200, 218, 223; and Booker T. Washington’s funeral, 28; “Ethiopia, Land of Our Fathers” compared to, 33, 34; Marcus Garvey’s use of, 33, 34; James Weldon Johnson’s account of writing of, 38; communities choosing as anthem, 38–39; and Pan-African Congress of 1927, 39; and pageantry, 40, 41, 42; and New Negro Era, 42–45; and philosophical argument about black humanity and existence, 44; movement represented in, 45; in secular world, 47–48, 50–51; recordings of, 50, 118, 204, 211, 213, 221–22; as inspiration for visual arts, 51–52; and leftists, 54; poetry paired with, 56; George Gaines’s parodic version of, 56–58; symphonic performances of, 60; Walter Daykin on, 62–63; as spiritual bulwark, 66; and black artistic production, 66, 137, 161–62; and ASCAP anniversary celebration of 1939, 71; institutional significance of, 73; and Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C., 78–79; guided group singing as method of socializing children, 84; endurance, striving, and ascent in, 84, 99; prevalence in South compared to North, 88–89; and out-of-school learning communities, 90–91, 101–2; and Negro History Week, 95, 96–98, 105; universal aspirations present in, 97; Mildred Johnson Edwards on, 99–100; and celebration of black achievement, 101, 215, 216, 217, 219, 223; Martin Luther King Jr.’s references to, 111, 112, 169–70; and Americans All series, 113; and representation politics of mass culture, 113; and politics of representation, 113, 114; Americana blended with, 114, 117, 125, 127, 135, 218; and World War II, 118–19; and SNYC conventions, 125; imagery of light and dark in, 134–35; and Montgomery Bus Boycott, 140, 141–42; and civil rights movement, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149, 150–51, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159–60, 168, 174; and Pan-Africanism, 142–43; and black associational life, 145; Gerald Westbrook on, 166; and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, 173; and Black History Month, 177, 211, 215, 222, 224–25; Hale Smith’s arrangement of, 186; interpretations of, 186, 187–92, 214, 221–22; Roland Carter’s arrangement of, 186–87; children’s book versions of, 194; and Kwanzaa, 196; Barbara Jordan’s narration of, 204; and Ronald Reagan, 209–10; and advertising campaigns, 211; and black writers, 220; and Ferguson, Missouri, 224; title of, 229n2