Lift Every Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson–Chair of the Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, wanted to write a poem in memory of Abraham Lincoln's birthday. However, amid the ongoing civil rights movement; Johnson decided to write a poem which was themed around the struggles of African Americans  after the Reconstruction era (including the passage of Jim Crow laws in the South). "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was first recited by a group of 500 students in 1900. His brother J. Rosamond Johnson later wrote music to go with the poem.