Melba Moore on her career, racism & the NFL Playing Lift Every Voice

The NFL Will Play 'Lift Every Voice And Sing' Before Each Season-Opener Game. The song known as the Black national anthem will play at the start of every season opener game, coming before "The Star Spangled Banner.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson in 1899.

It was first performed in 1900 at a segregated school in Florida by a group of children commemorating the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln. Subsequent landmark performances in the intervening decades include those by Kim Weston in 1972, Melba Moore in 1990, Gladys Knight and BeBe Winans in 2012 and Beyoncé in 2018.

In addition to her Tony Award, Moore's music career brought additional accolades. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1971 for 'Best New Artist'. Her 1975 second album, Peach Melba, saw her get a Grammy nomination. In 1976, she earned another Grammy nomination for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance - Female for the song "Lean on Me",.[19] Moore was also nominated for Best Female Rock Vocal in 1986 for "Read My Lips". Moore is also the 2012 Recipient of the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival Theatre Legend Award. Moore was inducted into the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame on October 4, 2015, in Detroit.

Moore received the prestigious 2015 Sandy Hosey Lifetime Achievement Award during the Artists Music Guild's 2015 AMG Heritage Awards broadcast held on November 14, 2015, in North Carolina.[20] Ms. Moore stars in the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe's production of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" to great acclaim in the sold-out run.

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