Sheryl Lee Ralph carried out “Raise Each Voice and Sing” at Tremendous Bowl 2023 Sunday (Feb. 12) from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
She delivered a sturdy efficiency with the assistance of a backup choir and American Signal Language performer Justina Miles, taking everybody within the stadium — and the 100 million estimated tv viewers at house — to church as a substitute.
“Let our rejoicing rise/ Excessive because the listening skies,” she bellowed of the uplifting lyrics. Whereas sporting a powerful off-the-shoulder pink and black jumpsuit with matching puffy gloves, the Emmy award-winning Abbott Elementary actress appeared like a winner hours earlier than both the Philadelphia Eagles or Kansas Metropolis Chiefs could be declared the night’s victors.
“Raise Each Voice and Sing” is a hymn written by James Weldon Johnson that’s sometimes called the “Black nationwide anthem” as a result of the “lyrics eloquently captured the solemn but hopeful attraction for the freedom of Black Individuals” and was “prominently used as a rallying cry through the Civil Rights Motion of the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties,” in line with the NAACP.
Ralph made historical past on recreation day by changing into the primary Black individual to carry out “Raise Each Voice and Sing” on the sphere earlier than the Tremendous Bowl. Two years in the past, Alicia Keys turned the primary individual to carry out the anthem through the Tremendous Bowl primetime telecast in a pre-recorded video. Final yr, Mary Mary did the honors from outdoors Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium.
Watch Ralph’s efficiency of “Raise Each Voice and Sing” above.
