Shana L. Redmond, professor of musicology, was heard on NPR’s Morning Edition today in a segment of American Anthem: Music that Challenges, Unites and Celebrates. This segment explored the staying power of the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which has become known as the “black national anthem.” She said, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a song about transcending difficulties — and those difficulties have never fully receded. “Black communities across the globe continue to be vulnerable in very unique and unsettling ways,” Redmond says. “To sing this song is to revive that past — but also to recognize, as the lyrics of the song reveal, that there is a hopeful future that might come of it.”
Listen to the entire segment on NPR: American Anthem: Music that Challenges, Unites and Celebrates.