There are a few iron laws of Super Bowl Sunday. Someone will show up “just for the commercials,” then immediately talk through all the commercials. And in recent years, there’s that moment when the broadcaster announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the Black National Anthem.”
If you’re in an all-Black space, you’re good, but in mixed company, you can feel the room shift. You brace for the side-eye. You try to make eye contact with the only other Black person who was across the room, but this isn’t their first co-worker Super Bowl party. They got, got last year, and knew exactly when to excuse themselves to the bathroom. Now you’re on your own, holding the very specific feeling of knowing exactly the weight of this song … while also realizing you might not know every single word.
The History of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” began as a poem by James Weldon Johnson, set to music by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson. It was first performed publicly on February 12, 1900 in Jacksonville, Florida, by 500 schoolchildren at a segregated school to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday. Over time, it became a song of community—sung in churches, schools, and civic gatherings — and widely known as the “Black National Anthem.” Not in the “My president is Black kind of way,” but in the “we’ve needed our own language for hope inside this country” cause sometimes we ain’t really feeling the other version.
Why is it Sung Before the Super Bowl
The NFL didn’t always treat this song as a required pregame ritual. A big part of the context is the league’s long, messy relationship with protest, especially after Colin Kaepernick began sitting (and later kneeling) during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality and systemic racism. That moment wasn’t just a controversy. It was a public referendum on whether the league could stomach players using its most patriotic theater, the pregame ceremony, to shine a light on how some systems of power really felt about the value of Black life.
Fast forward to 2020, in the shadow of the country’s racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder and the broader Black Lives Matter protests. The NFL framed “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as part of its kickoff pageantry explicitly as something meant to help a nation “in need of healing.”
In other words, after years of arguing about whether players could peacefully protest during the anthem, the league began elevating a song that speaks directly to the history those protests were pointing at. Make it make sense.
Still, a win’s a win, and that moment is still baked into Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium, as actor, singer, and GRAMMY nominee Coco Jones will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as part of the pregame lineup.
The Moment that the Song Reflects
The Super Bowl, quite honestly, may be America’s biggest mirror. Or is it Love Island USA? Football has surpassed baseball for years now as the country’s favorite pastime. It’s not only about the best teams or the quarterback match-up; depending on whether your team is in it at ll it’s barely about the game.
It’s the pageantry, the celebs, the halftime show, all packaged between ads for trucks and chips that won’t add an inch to your waistline… I promise.
Sure, the Black National Anthem is unceremoniously performed early enough that many fans may not have made it to their seats yet, but when “Lift Every Voice and Sing” appears and you stand alone in your co-worker’s living room, it does something quietly specific: it asks the country to hold more than one truth at the same time. Pride and celebration. Pain and accountability.
So, this year, despite how mixed your friend group is, when Coco Jones takes the stage, stand with pride, demand everyone show some respect, and even if you don’t know all the words beyond the chorus, worry not. You’re not alone. The point isn’t perfection, it’s presence. And on the biggest Sunday in American sports, it deserves the room to be heard.
And just in case you need a pre-game refresher:
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Author: James Weldon Johnson
Verse1
Lift ev’ry voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the list’ning skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Verse 2
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path thru’ the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
Verse 3
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way,
Thou who hast by thy might led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.