By Beth Reese Cravey Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
(Source Jacksonville Florida Times-Union):
Lloyd Washington knows every note, every verse of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” which the NAACP named the Black national anthem.
The song was created in 1900 by brothers James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson, who were born and raised in Jacksonville. Washington, a native son himself, said he finds the Johnson brothers’ last stanza particularly compelling because it is a prayer:
“God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who hast brought us thus far on the way, thou who hast by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray. … May we forever stand, true to our God, true to our native land.”
“That really gets me,” he said.
Washington’s own long path of learning about the Johnsons and championing a local honor for them has finally come to fruition. He was there in 2020 when then-Mayor Lenny Curry unveiled early plans for Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park in downtown’s LaVilla area, on the site of the house where the brothers grew up. And Washington was there Thursday when Mayor Donna Deegan led the ribbon cutting that officially opened the $4.7 million park celebrating the Johnsons’ legacy.
“It means a lot, not just for me but for a lot of people,” Washington said.
The park at 120 Lee St. also celebrates the resilience and resurgence of LaVilla, which in the late 1800s and well into the 20th century was the center of Jacksonville’s African American culture.
“It was the ‘Harlem of the South’ and it was being torn down,” Washington said. “It’s slowly but surely coming back.”
Though the park was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the city of Jacksonville, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, other community partners and advocates like Washington kept it alive.
The completed park includes historical markers, a shotgun-style house and lifted lawn, a stage with a misting element and stage with a lifted lawn, gardens throughout and text sign panels with the “Life Ev’ry Voice and Sing” lyrics. A highlight is “Calling it Done,” a sculpture by Brian Owens that features bronze casts of the Johnson brothers with a cast stone piano.
The sculpture was envisioned as an “imaginative representation of the Johnson brothers’ legacy,” said Diana Donovan, executive director of the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville. The finished work, she said, is a “significant and meaningful public art piece that will truly inspire and enrich our downtown cultural landscape.”
Creating Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park
The design was “thoughtfully curated,” according to the duPont Fund, a Jacksonville-based philanthropy that helped fund the project.
“We wanted to create a public space and bring resources to the table,” the fund’s president, Mari Kuraishi, said.
Curry “got it off the ground” with support from Lori Boyer, CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority, and the artistic vision came from noted landscape architect Walter Hood, creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio. Hood, the winner of a MacArthur “genius grant,” is based in Oakland, Calif., but was Southern born so he understood the history, Kuraishi said.
Hood also did extensive research on the Johnsons, as well as LaVilla and Jacksonville, she said.
Who were James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson?
James Weldon Johnson‘s resume was long and varied: principal of the Stanton School and Florida’s first black lawyer since Reconstruction and later diplomat, poet, political activist, professor, journalist and leader of the NAACP, according to a 2020 Times-Union article about the brothers and the city’s plans for the park.
A local middle school is named after him and in 2020 the city rechristened downtown’s Hemming Park as James Weldon Johnson Park. It was initially named after Charles C. Hemming, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and donated a statue of a Confederate soldier to the city.
His younger brother John Rosamond Johnson was a “musical prodigy who toured Europe and wrote songs for Broadway and vaudeville, pushing back against stereotypical minstrel portrayals of Black life,” according to the 2020 Times-Union article.
What’s the history of LaVilla?
In its heyday, LaVilla — bounded by State Street to the north, I-95 to the west, Broad Street to the east and Brooklyn to the south — was just as bustling as the Johnson brothers’ lives.
It had the city’s “richest multi-cultural, multi-ethnic life. … A visual pastiche of humanity, not to mention a cacophonic operetta to the ear,” according to Alan Bliss, CEO of the Jacksonville Historical Society & Jacksonville History Center.
“Because of its proximity to Jacksonville’s railroad and the riverfront docks, newcomers found LaVilla almost as soon as they arrived,” he wrote in a 2023 Florida Times-Union guest column. “Its several dozen blocks were fertile ground for people to meet others of different races, nationalities, education and cultural tastes. Musicians, artists and authors experienced, absorbed and exchanged new things in an environment where ‘new’ was a daily occurrence.”
Visiting musicians included Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington, Kuraishi said.
That rail and riverfront location led LaVilla to have the city’s “highest concentration of hotels” and a diverse population, ranging from Lithuanian Jews to Chinese immigrants, she said. “It was an incredible mix,” she said. “It’s hard for us to imagine what it was like. The physical infrastructure is gone.”
But LaVilla has been slowly regenerating, with the help of the lauded LaVilla School of the Arts and the Ritz Theatre and Museum, among other things. More recent additions include the 1.3-mile Lavilla Link of the Emerald Trail greenway, which runs through Life Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park, and the 91-townhome Johnson Commons at LaVilla.
Connecting the past with the future
The park “honors the reemergence of LaVilla, as this historically rich neighborhood reclaims its place as a thriving hub of arts, culture and community in Jacksonville,” Deegan said at the ribbon cutting. “As we honor the contributions of the Johnson brothers today, we open the doors for new generations to add their voices and perspectives to LaVilla’s living legacy.”
She announced that a community festival will be held at the park on Sept. 14.
Watching the new park come to life after years of planning is a “dream come true,” Daryl Joseph, city director of parks, recreation and community services, said.
“I truly see this as an artistic and cultural experience,” he said, noting that the park’s tie with the LaVilla Link creates “another destination … It connects the past with the future.”
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park also gives residents and tourists alike an opportunity to “recognize two gentlemen who were able to accomplish so much and are talked about years later,” Joseph said. “It brings them back to life.”
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