What does it mean not only to preserve a historic home, but to sustain a tradition of Black creativity, reflection, and renewal?
In Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Five Acres—the home and writing cabin of poet, diplomat, NAACP leader, and “National Hymn” author James Weldon Johnson—served as a retreat from the demands of public life. Johnson’s “National Hymn,” later widely known as “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and recognized today as the Black National Anthem, became one of the most enduring works in African American cultural and political history. Purchased in 1926, became a place where Johnson could write, rest, and imagine beyond the pressures of racism, politics, and national visibility. Nearly a century later, after the property fell into disrepair and faced possible demolition, literary executor Jill Rosenberg-Jones and her husband Rufus Elmer Jones Jr. acquired and restored the site, transforming an endangered private site into the foundation of a broader effort to safeguard Johnson’s life and legacy.
In this episode, Foundation Chair Jill Rosenberg-Jones and President Rufus Elmer Jones Jr. reflect on the restoration of Five Acres—from Jill’s discovery of the deteriorating property in 2011 to the launch of an artist residency in 2017 inspired by Johnson’s belief that “no people can be deemed inferior who produce great art and literature.” Together, we explore preservation as stewardship, rest as resistance, the contested public memory surrounding the “National Hymn,” and their vision for a future Center for Culture and Convening that would expand Five Acres into a national space for Black artistic and scholarly renewal.
jamesweldonjohnson.org / @jamesweldonjohnsonfoundation
