James Weldon Johnson wrote the poem in 1905 for Abraham Lincoln's birthday anniversary. His musician brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, composed the music for the poem. The song was first performed in public on February 12, 1900 by 500 children at Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida where James was the principal.

The song's lyrics are a prayer of thanksgiving to God, and a prayer for faithfulness and freedom. The song's imagery evokes the biblical Exodus from slavery to the freedom of the "promised land".

The Johnson Brothers moved to New York City, where they became popular composers of ragtime music. By 1904 they had a string of ragtime hits and were well-known African American songwriters.

In July of 1904, James became chairman of the Colored Republican Club of New York. He helped write two songs for Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt’s successful presidential campaign that year. In turn, Roosevelt appointed James as United States Consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela in 1906. With the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912 Johnson's diplomatic service came to an end.

In 1916, James accepted the newly created post of National Field Secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which had grown to become the country’s premier Black rights advocacy and defense organization since its founding in 1910. Johnson’s duties included investigating racial incidents and organizing new NAACP branches around the country, and he succeeded in significantly raising the organization’s visibility and membership through the years following World War I. His successes as field secretary led to his appointment as NAACP Executive secretary in 1920, a position he was to hold for the next ten years. In 1919 "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" was declared by the organization to be "the Negro national anthem." James said, "Nothing that I have done has paid me back so fully in satisfaction as being the part creator of this song. I am always deeply thrilled when I hear it sung…"

He distinguished himself equally as a man of letters with such works as God’s Trombones (1927) and The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912).

Returning to Jacksonville in 1894, James was appointed a teacher and principal of the Stanton School and managed to expand the curriculum to include high school-level classes. He also became an active local spokesman on Black social and political issues. In 1895 he founded the Daily American, the first Black-oriented daily newspaper in the United States. During its brief life, the newspaper became a voice against racial injustice and served to encourage Black advancement through individual effort.

James read law with the help of a local white lawyer, and in 1898 he became the first Black lawyer admitted to the Florida Bar since Reconstruction. James practiced law in Jacksonville for several years. In his honor, the City of Jacksonville, Florida, renamed its central square James Weldon Johnson Plaza.