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>

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>

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>

 I was in front of my television nearly every Saturday morning and pouted when I couldn’t be. Because why do Saturday morning errands have to run over and make me miss Soul Train?

Then at some point, my local television station would run that day’s episode back late at night or maybe late Sunday afternoon if you were lucky.

I wasn’t alone. People across various races, ethnicities, and ages were doing the same thing even if we didn’t talk about it together.

So, let’s talk about Soul Train — not as nostalgia, but as legacy, genius, and cultural leadership. Because those dancers were not just “having fun on television.”
They were innovators. Stylists. Athletes. Choreographers. Cultural architects.

And they made it look effortless — which is exactly why too many people underestimated the brilliance.

Soul Train: Where movement became language

Week after week, Black dancers brought their full selves to that stage:

• rhythm layered on rhythm
• footwork that defied gravity
• style that felt like freedom
• personality that spoke louder than words

They didn’t wait for permission.
They didn’t ask for validation.

They shaped:

fashion (we tried to wear the clothes that they wore)

music trends

hair styles 

how we move at weddings, clubs, cookouts, and celebrations even today 

Artists came on Soul Train hoping to be accepted by the dancers — because if the dancers loved your sound, the culture followed.

That’s power.

And yet — like so much Black brilliance — it was often framed as “fun,” “natural,” “just dancing.”

No.

It was training without trainers.
Choreography without credit.
Discipline without applause.

They paid their own way.
They practiced for hours.
They created moves that later got copied, monetized, and studied — while many of their names were left out of history.

They were leaders.

When excellence looks “easy,” people forget the work

This is where it connects back to you.

When you carry something with grace —
when you move with skill —
when your voice, presence, creativity, or wisdom flows…

People can dismiss it.

“Of course she can do that.”
“That’s just natural.”
“That’s not a real skill.”

They get comfortable with your labor.
They get used to your brilliance.

And suddenly:

• your gifts become “expected”
• your genius becomes “ordinary”
• your effort disappears behind the shine

But what Soul Train shows us is this:

Just because something is done beautifully does NOT mean it was easy.

Just because you make it look smooth does not mean it did not cost time, strength, courage, and soul.

The dancers were unsung — but not unseen

In the years to come, we cannot allow their legacy to be minimized for anyone’s comfort.

We will not:

• let their artistry be written off as “cute”
• pretend they weren’t pioneers
• ignore how they expanded culture, joy, and possibility

They deserve the same respect given to classical dancers, choreographers, and performance artists — because they were all of that.

They owned the floor.
They owned their bodies.
They owned their creativity.

And they built a path many others are still walking.

And you — your gifts deserve that same honor

Whatever your gift is:

• storytelling
• organizing
• caregiving
• spiritual insight
• leadership
• artistic creation
• survival wisdom
• innovation

It matters.

You do not have to shrink so others feel relaxed.
You do not have to dull your shine so others don’t feel threatened.

The dancers didn’t tone themselves down.
They didn’t apologize for being great.

They danced like the world needed that light —
because it did.

And so do you.

Your gifts are brilliant.

Let them shine.
Let them stretch.
Let them lead.

History will remember those who dared to move freely —
and you are part of that lineage.

**There is a difference between Studio54 and Soul Train. Two entirely different entities. Soul Train was a legendary cultural experience that ran on television for 36 years. There will never be another. Respect.

**Note, it is unlikely that these dancers were “high” on anything but the music, the fashion, and vibe which they always knew was special. The producers ran a tight ship.

<p>The post Soul Train: Where art became cross-cultural language first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

While performing at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham before an all-white audience, a group of white segregationists rushed the stage and physically assaulted him. They knocked him off the piano bench and he suffered a back injury. Police intervened quickly and arrested several assailants. Wikipedia+1

“I just came here to entertain you. That was what I thought you wanted. I was born here in Alabama. Those folks hurt my back. I cannot continue, because I need to see a doctor.” EJI Calendar+1

👊 The attack was racially motivated — fueled by Jim Crow attitudes and resentment that a Black entertainer was performing for white audiences. Some plans for the assault involved many more men, but police disrupted it. Wikipedia

🎤 After the attack, Cole briefly returned to the stage and told the audience he couldn’t continue without medical attention. He later performed his scheduled show for Black audiences that same night. EJI Calendar

🧠 Cole was deeply affected by the incident. At the time he expressed confusion about being targeted, saying he wasn’t actively protesting segregation — but the attack helped push him toward deeper involvement in civil-rights causes. University of Dayton+1

How the Attack Shaped Nat King Cole’s Later Actions

Before the Birmingham assault, Nat King Cole was often described as careful and non-confrontational about civil rights. He believed—understandably—that excellence, dignity, and professionalism might offer protection in a violently segregated world. Was he not the epitome of excellence?

What Birmingham taught him was this:

Even restraint is not immunity.
Even brilliance is not shelter.
Even silence does not guarantee safety.

After that night, several shifts became visible, because Mr. Cole was done and he was through.

1. He became more financially supportive of the movement
Nat King Cole began quietly donating to civil-rights organizations, including the NAACP. He didn’t always publicize this. He understood the cost of visibility—and chose impact over applause.

2. He stopped believing that “just entertaining” was enough
His statement—“I came here to entertain you”—was not weakness.
It was a realization spoken aloud: that even joy, talent, and grace were being politicized when carried in a Black body.

That recognition changed how he understood the world he was moving through.

3. He grew clearer about the limits placed on Black excellence
Cole did not suddenly become a protest singer. His contribution was different—and that matters. He embodied the truth that:

Respectability does not protect you from hatred.
Silence does not stop violence.
Success does not cancel racism.

For many Survivors, this resonates deeply.
You can do everything “right” and still be targeted.
You can be peaceful and still be punished.
You can offer beauty and still be met with harm.

4. He influenced the generation that followed
Artists like Sam Cooke would later speak openly about how Nat King Cole’s experiences shaped their own decisions to be more explicit, more outspoken, more demanding of dignity. Cole’s pain became part of a lineage of clarity.

He didn’t fail the movement by being who he was.
He showed, in real time, the cost of existing in a body the world had already decided to politicize.

5. By 1957 Nat King Cole was calling things out. Cole himself chose to end 📺 The Nat King Cole Show which was a weekly musical variety series on NBC beginning in 1956. Cole was first African-American entertainer to host a national TV variety program show and after NBC couldn’t find sponsors and the network planned less favorable time slots. He famously said of advertisers, “Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark,” pointing to how racial prejudice shaped who gets supported and who doesn’t. Wikipedia

Why This Matters for Survivors Today

This is not just history.
This is pattern recognition.

Many Survivors are accused of being “too much,” “divisive,” or “making it about identity” when they are simply naming what happened to them.

Nat King Cole’s life reminds us:

• You don’t have to be loud to be targeted

• You don’t have to be radical to be punished

• Sometimes your presence alone disrupts denial

And that does not make you wrong.

There will be moments when people accuse you of being “racial,” “divisive,” or “making things about race.”

Not because you shouted.
Not because you attacked.
Not because you sought conflict.

But because you showed up as yourself.

In this world, some bodies arrive already read as statements.
Some lives are treated as arguments.
Some presence is interpreted as defiance—before a single word is spoken.

That is not something you created.
That is something history assigned.

You are not responsible for the discomfort that rises when truth stands in the room.

Sometimes who you are is already considered “on the offense”—
not because you’re aggressive,
but because your existence disrupts the fantasy that everything is neutral, fair, or resolved.

This is not about intention.
It is about perception shaped by power.

You may notice:

• People demand that you be “less visible” to be considered fair
• Your silence is acceptable, but your voice is labeled a threat
• Your presence is tolerated only when it reassures others
• Your humanity is politicized while theirs is presumed neutral

This is not because you failed to be gentle enough.
It is because some systems only feel peaceful when you are quiet.

Let this be a reminder you return to often:

Being named “political” does not mean you are wrong.
It often means you are seen.

There is nothing radical about existing in your full humanity.
There is nothing hostile about telling the truth of your life.
There is nothing aggressive about refusing to shrink.

You are allowed to take up space without apologizing.
You are allowed to speak without translating your pain into palatable language.
You are allowed to stand firm without being mislabeled.

Affirmation

I release the need to defend my existence.
I am not required to soften my truth to make others comfortable.
I understand that my presence may challenge illusions—but I do not carry shame for that.
I stand rooted, whole, and clear.
I belong here.

— Survivor Affirmations

<p>The post When Being Yourself Is Labeled “Political”: Why some people are punished simply for showing up first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

Thanks to these two wonderful creators for sharing this list with us. And thanks to all the creators….the actors, writers, caterers, assistants, publicists, marketers, musicians, artists…who made these films possible.

Black American Holiday Movie Binge pic.twitter.com/tOCpcoaYbc

— ®️SheLuv (@SoulProvocateur) November 26, 2025

<p>The post Black American Holiday Movie Binge first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>

I woke up and encountered this story by BigBoi. Made my morning.

Your story has the power to do that too. Keep living. Keep crafting your storytelling skills. 

---

And This is why I don’t fly private ….. True Story pic.twitter.com/9npozDNqca

— Big Boi (@BigBoi) November 20, 2025

I woke up and encountered this story by BigBoi. Made my morning.

Your story has the power to do that too. Keep living. Keep crafting your storytelling skills. 

Fight injustice when it comes to storytelling and representation —
but never stop telling your story.

There will always be people who try to silence others

There will always be systems that twist narratives, erase voices, or elevate the wrong ones.
And there will always be those who benefit from keeping the truth hidden.

But your story is not optional.
Your story is not disposable.
Your story is not too much, too messy, too emotional, or “not the right time.”

Your story is evidence.
Your story is wisdom.
Your story is survival.
Your story is power stitched together from experience, clarity, and courage.

Injustice thrives when the truth is quiet.
Power strengthens when the harmed go silent.
Representation disappears when some voices are talked over, rewritten, or ignored.

So yes — fight the injustice.
Push back against misrepresentation.
Name the ways your truth has been flattened, softened, or erased.

But do not stop speaking.
Do not stop sharing.
Do not stop taking up space in the world with what you lived through and what you learned.

Because every time you tell your story with honesty, with boundaries, with strength, and with love for yourself…

You shift the world.
You widen the path for someone coming behind you.
You become the proof that silence is not the only option.

Your voice is a lighthouse.
Let it shine.
Let it warn.
Let it guide.
Let it heal.

And let it keep on telling the truth.

<p>The post Your Voice Is a Lighthouse: Keep Shining Through the Noise (Featuring Amazing Animated Story by BigBoi) first appeared on Survivor Affirmations.</p>