An educator in Jacksonville, Florida is lighting up our timelines with Black joy at the top of Black History Month.
Last week, math teacher Nadine Ebri posted a video of her students from 2018, after she taught them the lyrics to Lift Every Voice and Sing, also known as the Black National Anthem.
While a lot of our culture has passed down across generations, many of her students weren’t familiar with the song, despite it being written by James Weldon Johnson and composed by J. Rosamond Johnson in their hometown of Jacksonville.
The kids learned the lyrics and, as we do, added their own sauce to their rendition of the song.
The viral video is practically a Renaissance painting, with everyone in the frame doing their own little part to create this masterpiece. We’ve got beatmakers in one corner, a collection of milly rockers in the center, and a full chorus of students vibing in harmony.
The students got plenty of love on social media.
Newly minted ESPN correspondent Angela Rye also noted the importance of the anthem and why it shouldn’t be a national hymn right now.
Pausing her math lessons for this Black history moment is why Black educators like Nadine matter, and our timelines are thankful she did.