when james weldon johnson wrote this hymn, he wrote it to tell a story. you don't see a movie until you see it all and see the conclusion. i ask everyone to stand, and if you don't have the words, we invite you to get a program. ♪ lift every voice and sing, til earth and heaven ring ring with the harmonies of liberty let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies let it resound loud as the rolling sea. sing a song full of the faith that 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 til victory is won. stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, felt in the days when hope unborn had died. yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet come to a place for which our fathers sighed? we have come over a way that with tears has been watered, we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, out from the gloomy past, til now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. god of our weary years, god of our silent