The removal of a song from the Spring Cove Middle School chorus concert held Tuesday has upset several parents and community members, and has the NAACP looking into the matter.

The concert was originally meant to include the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson. It was first performed that same year by 500 children at a segregated school in Florida to celebrate the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, according to NPR.

District Superintendent Betsy Baker and Middle School Principal Amy Miller made the decision to cut the song from the program after students on Monday began expressing concern over the song and the “divisiveness and controversy in the nation.” Students were worried that the song would cause a controversy in the community, Baker said.

Calls also began to come into the middle school office regarding the issue but she “couldn’t speak to why” those callers waited until the day before the concert to bring it to the district’s attention, Baker said.

“We wanted everyone to feel comfortable,” she said, so removing the song “would allow all the kids to participate.”

Spring Cove School Board President Troy Wright called the decision a “lose-lose situation” and said parents were threatening to pull their kids out of the concert over the song.

“We can’t make everyone happy,” Wright said. “We have to do the balancing act between who supports it and who doesn’t support it and our job is trying to find the balance between it.”

District parent Stephen Hershberger, whose son was in the chorus concert, said Baker mentioned in an email that part of the decision to pull the song was due to concerns she and Miller had about maintaining order at the event.

“With the other things going on in the district, I’m sure some people said they would protest but that’s just speculation,” Hershberger said.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was one of many songs selected for the chorus by teachers in the music department, Baker said, noting teachers “picked songs that they felt were appropriate.” Because the chorus practiced other songs, one of those was picked to fill the slot.

Dropping the song was “clearly a divisive issue here,” Baker said. “There was no right decision, but we focused on letting all of the kids participate in the concert.”

Chorus is an elective course in which students must participate in both practices and concerts to pass, so Miller “felt it wouldn’t be fair to not let those kids perform,” Hershberger said.

Hershberger said schools make accommodations all the time for people who don’t want to participate in a particular activity.

“Other options were given, like letting those kids sit out during that song, but Dr. Miller didn’t want anyone to be singled out,” Hershberger said.

Hershberger said students who were uncomfortable singing the song could have also checked out the art show that was happening at the same time as the concert, or the song could have been moved to the end so those students could leave.

“Cutting the song just sends the message that a few individuals’ discomfort outweighs the perspective and care and concern of minority students and others who don’t have the same beliefs as them,” Hershberger said. “Being a minority student is already a daunting task and dismissing the little representation that the minority students have in the school sort of reinforces the inherent racism in this country.”

Baker insisted that race had nothing to do with the decision to cut the song.

“I think their discomfort had to do with controversy and divisiveness,” Baker said.

A chaplain and pastor, Hershberger said that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” can be found in more than 40 hymnals, “including most of the church hymnals in the Cove.”

The song has also been the anthem of the NAACP for more than a century and has been “nicknamed” the Black national anthem, Blair County NAACP President Andrae Holsey said.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is deeply entrenched in both Black and church history, Hershberger said.

“I know it’s not the religious aspect of the song … considering the first song the chorus sang in the concert was ‘Light of Grace’ by A. Beck,” Hershberger said. “It’s a religious song and even has excerpts from ‘Amazing Grace’ — another hymn.”

Holsey said that locally, the song has “never been divisive.”

“By no means is a song about the glory of America and the truth of our past divisive,” Holsey said.

Hershberger agreed, saying it “calls us into unity together” and the song being cut is “the first step in a slippery slope.”

“We are more than happy to communicate with the public and schools about it to create a more inclusive program,” Holsey said. “We just want to strengthen community ties.”

A call to Principal Amy Miller for comment was rerouted to Baker’s office.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.