What is ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ and who is performing it Sunday at Super Bowl LVII?

Emmy award-winning actress and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” during the halftime show at the Super Bowl Sunday.

The “Abbott Elementary” star said she is living her career dream — finding success as an actor and performing the Black National Anthem in front of millions who will tune in to the game.

“My parents always believed in me and my success,” Ralph said. “I know this would’ve been something they would love to have been a part of. I do miss them.”

The other pregame performances include country music star Chris Stapleton, who will sing the national anthem, while R&B legend Babyface will perform “America the Beautiful.”

Rihanna is the featured halftime performer.

Why is ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ the Black National Anthem?

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was first performed in 1900 by children at a segregated school in Jacksonville, Florida, to celebrate the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

The lyrics of the song were penned at the time of Jim Crow when African-Americans were searching for an identity. Author and activist James Weldon Johnson wrote the words as a poem, which his brother John then set to music.

“At the turn of the 20th century, Johnson’s lyrics eloquently captured the solemn yet hopeful appeal for the liberty of Black Americans,” according to an article in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People website.

The song was later adopted by the NAACP as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Shana Redmond, a professor at UCLA who studies music, race, and politics and author of the book Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora, told NPR.org in 2018 that it is a song about overcoming challenges — especially ones that have never fully gone away.

Redmond explained that the song conjures up the past but carries with it a hopeful note of what the future may bring.

An enduring legacy through popular music

More than a century later, the song has found resonance in popular music performances by some of the biggest stars. Beyonce sang the anthem — in front of a mostly white audience — at the 2018 Coachella music festival.

Motown’s Kim Weston sang it to nearly 100,000 people at the historic Wattstax concert in 1972. In 1990, singer Melba Moore released an all-star version that included Anita Baker, Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick. Gladys Knight and Bebe Winans added their own rendition in 2012.