Me: But you don’t know anything about it?

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a cornerstone of American cultural history, carrying a weight and resonance that has spanned over a century. Often referred to as the Black National Anthem, its journey from a school presentation to a global symbol of resilience is remarkable.

Here are 10 facts about this historic hymn:

Written by Brothers: The lyrics were written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1900. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson, composed the music five years later in 1905. It was written during the era of Jim Crow segregation in the American South.

A Birthday Tribute: It was originally written to honor the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The song was first performed on February 12, 1900, by a choir of about 500 Black schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida.  James Weldon Johnson was the principal of the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, at the time.

Spiritual Ties: The lyrics draw on biblical imagery, especially the Exodus story, and are both a prayer of thanksgiving to God and a plea for faithfulness, freedom, and perseverance

Adopted by the NAACP: In 1919, the NAACP officially dubbed it the “Negro National Anthem.” James Weldon Johnson would later serve as the organization’s first Black executive secretary.

A Symbol of the Civil Rights Movement: During the 1950s and 60s, the song became a rallying cry. It was frequently sung during marches, meetings, and sit-ins to provide spiritual and emotional strength to activists.

The “Black National Anthem” Title: While widely used, the title “Black National Anthem” was intended to signify a distinct cultural identity and shared struggle, rather than a desire for a separate physical nation.

Musical Structure: The song is a hymn, but it incorporates elements of African American musical traditions, including subtle “blue notes” and a rhythmic build that culminates in a powerful, triumphant finale.

Global Reach: While deeply rooted in the African American experience, its themes of liberty and endurance have seen it translated and performed worldwide, often in solidarity with various liberation movements.

Modern Resurgence: In recent years, the song has seen a massive “mainstream” revival. It has been performed at major televised events like the Super Bowl and the Democratic National Convention, sparking both celebration and national dialogue.

Congressional Recognition: In 2021, U.S. Representative James Clyburn introduced a bill to nominate “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as the national hymn of the United States, further cementing its status in American law and culture.

<p>The post 10 Facts About Lift Every Voice and SING! first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Memory does not keep time the way clocks do.
It keeps impact.
It keeps feeling.
It keeps the moments when something inside us recognized truth before our minds had words for it.

That is why so many people remember February not by dates, but by what it felt like when Michael Jackson took hold of the world’s attention and did not flinch from who he was.

When Black or White premiered at the start of February, it wasn’t just a video.
It was a pause.
A collective breath shared across borders, languages, and living rooms.

And when Remember the Time arrived at the edge of February-Black History Month- it carried that same gravity.
It did not need the exact same calendar placement to land in memory the same way.
It arrived with meaning already attached.

That is how memory works.

Michael Jackson understood something many never learn:
universality is not achieved by erasing yourself.
It is achieved by standing fully inside who you are.

We always knew where he came from.

A working-class Black family. A large one. Jehovah’s Witnesses. 
A small house in Detroit.
Siblings stacked close together in shared space and shared dreams.
A childhood shaped by discipline, music, labor, and love.

Those roots were never hidden.
They were the ground beneath everything he built.

He did not run from them.
He carried them with him into stadiums, into studios, into history.

Some people mistook complexity for rejection.

They misread his skin condition instead of learning about it.
They misinterpreted his wide circle of friends as disloyalty.
They confused his love for many cultures with a lack of love for his own.

But the truth was simpler and deeper.

He did not abandon his culture.
He expanded the room.

He showed what it looks like when a Black man is so at home in himself that he can welcome the world without shrinking. (Never said one demeaning word about Black women or men, only put us all in beautiful lights, set us to music, and put us on stages with alongside him)

That confidence unsettled people who needed identity to be narrow, controlled, and easily categorized.
So they rewrote him.
They projected.
They speculated.

Memory, however, kept the truth.

February remembers him not because of a date on a calendar, but because of alignment.

A Black artist holding global attention without apology

African and diasporic imagery centered with beauty and authority

Unity offered without surrender

Love expressed without dilution

That is why people say, “It was February,” even when the math gets fuzzy.

Meaning leaves fingerprints.
Calendars do not.

Michael Jackson had the world in his hands.
And instead of running from who he was, he stood inside it fully.

That is why people from everywhere found themselves in his work.
Not because he became less specific, but because he became more honest.

Memory remembers that.

Not the date.
Not the broadcast schedule.

But the moment when truth met timing and stayed.

P.S. And hell yeah, I’m feeling Jossie Harris Thacker. Because if I had danced with the Janet Jackson (That’s the Way Love Goes) and the Michael Jackson in REMEMBER THE TIME…

No Sir. No Ma’am. You could not tell me nothing ever again.

She did not say that exactly ……but I would. LOL.  (which is probably why it was not my blessing. lol.)

As Ｓｈａｙｌｙｎｎ, @mjsaura on X.com points out ….in a time when Black women were STILL as underrepresented as we are now, Michael Jackson cast Black women not just as background dancers and singers, but as his love interests, his queen, long lost love, the “girl next door” and the woman that he was in pursuit of.

He showed all cultures on this planet love and adoration, but he never failed to showcase the love and beauty of his home culture.

---

Remember the Time Facts

• Premiered late January 1992 with heavy prime-time rotation spilling into early February

• Cinematic scale, ancient African imagery, and unapologetic Black brilliance

• Premiered as a high-profile TV event in the U.S., heavily coordinated across major networks and MTV

• Closely tied to Super Bowl weekend attention and prime-time placement

• Felt like a cultural takeover, even if it wasn’t a single worldwide clock-strike moment

While its official premiere date is generally cited as January 31, 1992, many people experienced it during the opening days of February due to:

• Saturation airplay

• Prime-time scheduling

• Super Bowl–adjacent media attention

<p>The post Remember the Time: Memory Remembers Meaning, Not Calendars first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Photo by David Kwewum

We might not be able to be friends and that’s okay.

• Part of my healing is recognizing that not every person deserves access to my spirit.

• I release relationships that require me to dim, shrink, or dilute who I am becoming.

• I do not need companionship that confuses peace with silence or growth with obedience.

• I am not governed by another person’s fears, projections, or unfinished thinking.

• I honor that others may have beliefs, but I am not required to live inside them.

• My inner world is sacred, and I choose what is planted there.

• I am tending to my own beliefs with care, discernment, and wisdom.

• I nurture thoughts that strengthen me, steady me, and remind me who I am.

• I choose friendships that celebrate clarity, not control.

• My light is not arrogance. My light is alignment.

• I am allowed to grow beyond who others are comfortable understanding.

• I trust myself to know what nourishes me and what drains me.

• I am becoming more myself, and that is enough.

<p>The post Survivor Affirmations: I Tend My Own Light (w video) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Life does not call us to evolve through advancements in technology only. Life calls us to evolve culturally as well. 

Without cultural evolution:

Ingrid Silva

• speed grows, but wisdom stays small
• tools multiply, but tenderness thins
• systems scale, but souls shrink
• harm becomes efficient instead of rare

Culture is where we learn:

• how to protect the vulnerable
• how to live with difference without domination
• how to tell the truth without turning it into a weapon
• how to measure success by who is still whole at the end

Here is where one learns to cultivate moral weather — the atmosphere people breathe while deciding who matters.

That is a different kind of innovation:

• evolving language so Survivors are not made to feel criminal for needing safety
• evolving stories so Black life is treated as art, not content
• evolving norms so women’s boundaries are seen as intelligence, not inconvenience
• evolving care so protection is practical, not performative

A society that upgrades its machines but not its conscience only becomes more dangerous.

But a society that evolves its culture:

• invents technology with restraint
• builds systems with memory
• creates power with accountability
• and leaves room for the human nervous system to survive inside progress

That is not slow work.

That is the deepest form of advancement.

Technology can extend our reach.
But culture is what teaches our hands what not to take.
It teaches our mouths what not to say.
It teaches our power where to kneel.

Black culture is structural to America.

Not as decoration.
Not as trend.
Not as a “contribution.”

Structural

It shaped:

• the nation’s music before the nation had a conscience
• its language before it admitted whose mouth it came from
• its sense of rhythm, humor, style, resistance, mourning, and joy
• its very idea of “cool,” long before the word was profitable

There is no area of American culture that is not braided with Black culture.

And deeper than influence is function:

Black culture has been one of this country’s primary moral technologies.

It taught how to survive when systems were designed to erase.
How to make beauty under pressure.
How to encode memory when history was censored.
How to pass truth through song, food, gesture, hair, church, laughter, cadence, silence.

It carried:

• warning systems
• grief rituals
• protection codes
• dignity when the law refused it
• human interiority when society tried to flatten it

That is not aesthetic.

That is civilization work.

When Black culture is dismissed, what is really being dismissed is:

• intellectual authorship
• emotional architecture
• ethical labor
• and the right to be seen as creators of meaning, not just producers of style

America’s technological future will be shallow if it forgets the cultures that taught it how to be human under conditions of extreme inhumanity.

Black culture doesn’t just belong in America.

It is one of the reasons America learned how to endure itself.

That kind of remembering is cultural infrastructure.
It holds nations together longer than steel.

<p>The post Life Calls Us to Evolve Culturally Too: Sinners Dancers Revealed !! Juke Joint Scene Explained — Dance Styles, Symbolism & Forgotten History first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

It isn’t that people think that Black art should never be critiqued, but there is undeniable and die-hard racism within the critiques. Further, when most people dislike other art, they simply choose not to engage with it in favor of what they do like.  Not so, with Black art that garners high praise.

Some of you are about to learn something the hard way….like we and all the the people before us did. 

The conversations around Sinners

(nominated for a record breaking 16 Oscars and 18 NAACP awards) are about to expose a truth Black Americans have known for generations:

Many people were taught how to consume Black American art.
BUT, they were never taught how to respect and appreciate it. 

They learned how to copy it.
Dance to it.
Profit from it.
Quote it.

But not how to sit with it.
Not how to read it through the eyes of the culture that made it.
Not how to analyze it without shrinking it.

So the language starts.

“Popcorn movie.”
“Let’s see how it ages.”
“Overhyped.”
“Not that deep.”

Translation:
I don’t see myself centered, so I don’t recognize the value.

There is no white savior to orient them. 
No familiar doorway into the story where they get to be the moral center.

So instead of listening, they pretend to “grade”.

They will overlook:

• the Choctaw presence (as someone said: “one of the hardest film photos of the year”)This is a great video explaining why the Choctaw were chasing Remick.
• Here’s another
• the Irish music (did y’all catch that line dance?)
• the dynamic Asian characters (for me, I love the departure from the typical Westernized “demure & non-observant” Asian woman-Black people know there is more. She is human.)
• the blues lineage (a genre originated by Black Americans with Blues legend Buddy Guy making an appearance)
• the sacredness of the music montage scene that made film LEGEND Spike Lee leap like an excited child with sincere enthusiasm
• the white woman shaped by Black life, raised by a mother who took in Black twins, bound by a complicated love story this country doesn’t like to name
• the fact that the film quietly unfolds as the last night of many lives. It could
•  have been a sad obituary but it was a celebration of life. Much like the going home services (funerals) in Black culture. 

That alone lifts it out of “popcorn.”
But nuance is invisible to people trained to see Black stories as disposable.

This is not new. We were there. We heard it before.

They said it about The Color Purple.
They said it about What’s Love Got to Do With It.
They said it about Boyz n the Hood.
They said it about Eve’s Bayou.
They said it about Crooklyn, Mo Better Blues, and Do the Right Thing
They say it about any Black story that does not kneel.

No matter how groundbreaking. The quality of the work was never the issue. 

If the story does not position certain people as rescuer, validator, or final authority, they call it “small.” If Black Americans are not criminals, sexually promiscuous, or servants then not everyone knows how to engage with that thoughtfully.

At least not from a self appointed position that looks down as the “master” or “judge”.

Not from a place that can hold several dynamic truths at once because it lacks the courage to face OG truths. Foundational truths. 

And yes—
many of us learned this in college classrooms first. Rejected it in our essays and in our spoken the truth.

Where professors “correct” your interpretation.
Where your cultural literacy is treated as bias.
Where your lived understanding is treated as emotional noise.

They will take the teaching posture.

They will explain your story back to you. Maybe even sell it too.
Flatten it.
Sand it down.
Rename it something safer.

But in ten years, everyone will “remember” how they didn’t behave this way.

And then wonder why there are so few films like this.

• As if scarcity is accidental.
• As if it is not engineered. Intentional. 
• As if Black Americans controlling narrative, memory, grief, joy, complexity, and ending is not treated as dangerous.

We are not supposed to tell our own stories.

Not with this much interior life.
Not with this much authority.
Not without permission.

And to my people—and to every person from a minoritized culture watching this pattern unfold:

If it takes this much effort to dismiss your stories,
to reframe them,
to downgrade them,
to re-teach them,to mock them into smallness—

then you are looking at proof of value.

No one attacks what is empty.

People do not work so hard to minimize what has no power.

They do not rush to control what does not shape the world.

Create anyway.

Write anyway.

Film anyway.

Sing anyway.

Archive anyway.

Tell it from the inside.

Tell it without translation.
Tell it without apology.

Your stories are not “popcorn.”

They are memory.
They are lineage.
They are evidence.
They are inheritance.

And some truths only sound loud to people who benefit from silence.

Keep shining and make them put on sunglasses.

as i post this today………

so why learn to engage when you can just tear it down and say that it has “no value.”

AFFIRMATIONS FOR CREATORS

• • I am not here to translate my soul into something easier to digest.

  • My voice is not an argument.
    It is a record.

  • I create from memory, not from approval.

    

• Their misunderstanding does not reduce my meaning.

• I am not responsible for educating people who profit from not knowing.
• My culture is not a genre.
  It is a universe.

• I do not need to center myself in someone else’s mirror to be real.

• What unsettles them is not my craft —
  it is my authority.

• I refuse to shrink what my ancestors survived to preserve.

• My art is not “content.”
  It is continuity.

• I am allowed to be complex without being explained away.

• I will not soften my truth to be graded gently.

• My stories are not lonely.
  They are accompanied by the dead, the living, and the unborn.

• I create even when the room pretends not to notice.

• Being minimized is not a verdict.
  It is a reaction.

• I am not behind my time.
  I am ahead of their courage.

• I belong to a lineage of people who told stories while the world tried to erase the language.

<p>The post When You’re Trained to Consume a Culture but Not Understand It (Amplifying Affirmations for Black Creators) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Affirmation: I speak to myself in the tone I once searched for in others—
gentle, unhurried, faithful to my becoming.

Oh how I love, adore, and appreciate me for being me…every time I needed me.

Great news! He has a book. Let’s support art.

(He USED to be on TikTok. I am not surprised that he was part of the exodus.)

<p>The post Survivor Affirmation: I Appreciate Me for Being Me (featuring poet Steven Willis w Youtube video link) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Alberta Hunter’s life was a testament to the power of the “unpolished” authentic soul. She was a woman who conquered the world’s stages, walked away to spend twenty years quietly nursing the sick, and then returned to her art in her eighties with more grit, humor, and truth than ever before.

Her quote reminds us that technical perfection is often a mask, and that the most profound truths come from those who have lived them, not just studied them.

Here are a few affirmations inspired by her journey and that specific, hilarious and grounded wisdom:

• I trust the wisdom that was forged in the fire of my own life. I do not need a title or outside validation to be an expert on my own survival.

• My raw truth is more valuable than a polished lie. I give myself permission to be unrefined, as long as I am honest.

• There is dignity in every season of my life. Whether I am center-stage or quietly tending to the needs of others, my worth remains unshakable.

• I value the “musicians” in my life who lead with their hearts. I surround myself with people who understand the language of feeling, not just the language of power.

• It is never too late for my second act. Like the blues, my voice only grows deeper and more resonant with time.

• I do not need to “know all about” the rules to play my own song. My intuition is a more reliable guide than the expectations of a system that wasn’t built for me.

• I build from what I know to be true in my bones. I honor the “socialized bottom” within myself—the parts of me that are humble, resilient, and deeply human.

Alberta Hunter proved that you can lose everything—your fame, your youth, your platform—and still possess the one thing the world can’t teach: soul, baby, SOUL!

Know who you are.

<p>The post Playing by Heart: Alberta Hunter and the Power of Soul Wisdom first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

In times of uncertainty, it is easy to feel pulled in a dozen directions by the noise of the world. This post is a gentle reminder that while you cannot always control the storm, you can choose where to drop your anchor.

Grounding Affirmation

“In the midst of chaos and crisis, I give myself permission to let go of the noise. I choose to protect my peace and focus my energy on what is truly meaningful to me. My values are my compass, and they will lead me through.”

Why Prioritizing Meaning Matters Right Now

When everything feels like an emergency, our “urgent” brain takes over, often leaving us depleted. Returning to what is meaningful helps you:

• Conserve Emotional Energy: You stop trying to solve things that aren’t yours to carry.

• Maintain Clarity: Focusing on your core values (like family, health, or creative purpose) acts as a filter for decision-making.

• Build Resilience: We can endure almost any “how” if we have a “why.” Meaning provides that “why.”

How to Shift Your Focus Today

1. Identify the “Vital Few”: Ask yourself, “If I could only protect three things today, what would they be?”

2. Mute the Excess: Give yourself a scheduled break from news cycles or high-stress social feeds.

3. Honor Tiny Rituals: If connection is meaningful to you, a five-minute phone call to a loved one is more grounding than an hour of scrolling.

Remember: Choosing what matters isn’t selfish; it is an act of survival and a way to ensure you have the strength to show up for the world later.

Affirmations for Prioritizing Meaning in Chaos

• I am the architect of my attention; I choose to build my focus around what is truly meaningful.

• Even when the world is loud, my inner peace remains my highest priority.

• I release the weight of things I cannot change to make room for the people and purposes I love.

• My values are my North Star; they guide me clearly through the fog of any crisis.

• I am not required to carry the world’s weight; I am only required to show up for what matters most.

• I honor my boundaries by saying “no” to the noise and “yes” to my soul’s essential needs.

• I find strength in my “why,” choosing growth and connection over fear and distraction.

• My worth is not defined by the chaos around me, but by the love and intention I pour into my day.

• In moments of overwhelm, I return to the present and focus only on the next meaningful step.

• I trust my heart to recognize what is essential and my hands to let go of the rest.

<p>The post Finding Your Anchor: How to Prioritize What Matters in Times of Chaos first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Black culture is truly a wonderful vibe. Being Black is a beautiful blessing I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world!

Dear God, thank You for the gift of Blackness. 🙏🏾#BlackCulture #BlackPeople #BlackLife #BlackJoy #BlackLove pic.twitter.com/cmpDtnL9Iy

— Black, Beautiful, & Blessed (@MelanatedTalk) January 13, 2026

For no reason.

Because Black culture is so beautiful.

Aesthetics.

Resilience,

Creativity,

and community that have built the world rather than tearing it down.

Spiritual traditions

Healing vibes.

Innovative

Uplifting 

and ever-evolving language

Artistry

Black culture.

<p>The post Black Culture is SO Beautiful first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

We had a toddler visit us and I forgot what it was like.

I accidently sat on Mickey (the stuffed animal) and she acted like I killed him dead.

I turned the channel because I wasn’t used to her being there so I picked up my remote and turned to my channel and she went off.

We were in the car. No Wifi in some spots. No Youtube videos. Another tantrum. 

Sing her song when she doesn’t want you to sing it. Tantrum.

But those are babies. They just got here. You give them love, snacks, a nap, time alone, or a juice box and they reset. 

We should be embarrassed as a country that words of kindness are a “breaking viral news” moment. Thankfully, women like Lynn Jones are a standard in my culture. Wind beneath our weary wings. 

As it so happens this conversation grabbed me. My bachelors degree is in Organizational Management and Development-it is a degree that helps businesses to see people are every businesses greatest asset. For all the complaints about AI, what Lynn Jones did is what no machine can do without the aid of a human being.

She read the room. She read the person. She was human. She was humane. 

We’ve all seen these “journalists” being intentionally cruel. Who was that that asked the player who just lost his parent or grandparent where he was spending Thanksgiving knowing full well he just lost them? The player immediately zoned out. 

Not only did Coach Liam Coen need that, the country needed that. The calls against “unprofessional” behavior are telling on “professionalism”. You’re telling us that it was never meant to be humane. That it is simply a gatekeeper against human beings and their natural human behavior. Exposed.

And to the women journalists….but for women like Lynn Jones daring to step across lines that never made sense in first place, none of you would be where you are nor wearing what you get to wear.

 If you can only perform your job exactly as you were “trained” and “taught”, you are easily replaceable.

-Tonya GJ Prince

In many spaces, “professionalism” is spoken of as virtue.

Calm.
Controlled.
Polished.
Contained.

But Survivors learn something early:

Sometimes professionalism is not about care.
It is about distance.

It can become a shield people use to avoid:

• sitting with pain
• acknowledging harm
• witnessing truth
• or feeling what has already cost someone dearly to survive

And this lands hardest on the same people again and again:

• Black women, women across the Black diaspora, women from many Asian cultures, and other women whose cultures taught them to carry pain quietly, where emotional restraint is often mistaken for strength and silence is mistaken for maturity 
• neurodivergent people
• Survivors who still have a living nervous system
• Survivors who dare to feel out loud

When we speak plainly.
When our voices carry memory.
When our bodies respond honestly.
When our emotions do not arrive in tidy paragraphs.

We are told:

“Tone it down.”
“Be more professional.”
“Be objective.”
“Be easier to digest.”

But what they often mean is:

Make your humanity smaller so others can stay comfortable.

Even in Survivor spaces.

Especially there.

And that can cut deeper than silence.

Because healing was never meant to require emotional erasure.
Safety was never meant to demand numbness.
Truth was never meant to be filtered through someone else’s tolerance.

So here is your reminder:

Your feelings are not a flaw.
Your nervous system is not an inconvenience.
Your honesty is not unprofessional.

You do not have to sand down your soul to be taken seriously.

You do not have to become quiet to be worthy of care.

You do not have to perform calm to deserve safety.

Some people use “professionalism” to hide from their own unfinished healing.

You are not required to join them there.

You are allowed to be whole.

You are allowed to be seen.

You are allowed to feel — even in rooms that forgot how.

And you are still dignified.
Still wise.
Still credible.
Still sacred.

**And some of these critics have zero empathy of women being punched in the face by men declaring themselves to women, no regard for girls losing to boys or men. So empathy and courage is not their strong muscle. This opens a much needed conversation about how cruel journalists have been to players. Serena, Venus, and others. Empathy and compassion has been lacking for a very long time.

**Speaking of Venus and Serena, they have been telling us the name of the game in sports journalism is to be cruel to athletes since they were children (through their father). Lynn Jones broke that toy and now you see tantrums that outrank toddlers by far.

<p>The post Gratitude to the Humanity of Lynn Jones: When “Professionalism” Is Used as a Shield first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>