NAACP Investigates PA Middle School Removal Of ‘Black National Anthem’ From Chorus Concert

The NAACP is investigating why a Pennsylvania middle school removed the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing”— often referred to as the Black National Anthem —from its chorus concert.

District Superintendent Betsy Baker and Spring Cove Middle School Principal Amy Miller decided to remove the song from the program a day before the concert last Tuesday, according to The Altoona Mirror. They said students expressed concerns over the hymn and how it relates to a current “divisiveness and controversy in the nation.” 

“We wanted everyone to feel comfortable,” Baker said, adding that removing the song “would allow all the kids to participate.”

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson. It was performed for the very first time that same year by 500 children at a segregated school in Florida to celebrate the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The song has also been the anthem of the NAACP for over a century.

“Cutting the song just sends the message that a few individuals’ discomfort outweighs the perspective and care and concern of minority students and others who don’t have the same beliefs as them,” Stephen Hershberger, a parent, told the news outlet. “Being a minority student is already a daunting task and dismissing the little representation that the minority students have in the school sort of reinforces the inherent racism in this country.”

Hershberger added that an email announcing the school’s decision to remove the song was due to concerns over maintaining order during the concert.

“We can’t make everyone happy,” Spring Cove School Board President Troy Wright said. “We have to do the balancing act between who supports it and who doesn’t support it and our job is trying to find the balance between it.”

Wright referred to the decision as a “lose-lose situation” in which parents were threatening to pull their children out of the concert over the song.

Baker said that race didn’t drive the school’s decision and that instead, “discomfort had to do with controversy and divisiveness.”

“By no means is a song about the glory of America and the truth of our past divisive,” Blair County NAACP President Andrae Holsey said.