Lift Every Voice: Celebrating Black Culture airs on Monday at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET Maria Pasquini is the senior news editor for the human interest vertical at PEOPLE. She has been working at ...

“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written over 120 years ago by N.A.A.C.P. leader James Weldon Johnson, captures in its lyrics the solemn hope for the liberty of African Americans, which read in part: ...