Please stand with me (yes, right there by your computer!), click on the link below, and sing our national anthem (okay, if you are in a library, just whisper – but still stand up!). As you do, concentrate on the images that will remind you of the struggles we have faced in our history as a nation:
While the song you just heard might be unfamiliar to you, hopefully the images are not. It’s a part of our U.S. history that should cause us to reflect and move us to compassion. “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, or the Negro National Anthem as it is commonly referred to, became part of black culture within the U.S. as an anthem for Americans who were not always treated as Americans; as people who were not always treated as people.
I first heard the Negro National Anthem in 1986 when the people in my first appointment as a new Salvation Army Officer – the Chicago Lawn Corps – informed me that February was Black History Month (which I had heard of) and that we were going to sing this song (which I had not heard of) every week in our Sunday meetings as we observed the progress and example of African Americans in the United States.
But while I heard the stories of so many black people and marveled at the achievements which were often under appreciated and under recognized, what impacted me most was the example of the black people I learned to know, work with, and love. It was the example of my black soldiers who continued to meet for worship when the Ku Klux Klan marched in the streets around their corps building, or when a racially motivated arsonist threw an incendiary device through the window which would require massive cleanup and renovation. It was the example of Mrs. Geneva Brown, who put her arms around a very angry boy and told him, “Don’t hate, don’t hate…”, and the example of Mrs. Dempsey Jones and the sisters, Mrs. Adeline and Mrs. Christine Kirkwood, who learned to love the very diverse population in our corps neighborhood, a neighborhood where they would never feel safe living in even though they worked and worshiped there. It was the example of people who showed grace and love to individuals who were sometimes dirty, angry, hurting, and mentally or emotionally unstable.
And it was the example of those who, despite having experienced discrimination in their own personal lives, yet by God’s grace were putting into practice the Mission Statement of The Salvation Army: “…to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination,” day in and day out. These are my heroes – those who loved and prayed and put into action what they believed as Christians and as soldiers of The Salvation Army. Those who, by their example, changed people’s hearts and minds and lives – including my own!
This is Black History Month – but for me it is more, it is Black HERO Month.
“Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand. True to our God, true to our native land.” I choose to stand alongside these people, my heroes. Won’t you choose to stand with us as well, not only this month, but every day of your life? Start today!
Youth Department