
Watch Ledisi's fantastic Super Bowl performance of Lift Every Voice and Sing
Often referred to as the Black national anthem, a pregame performance of the hymn 'Lift Every Voice and Sing' has become a tradition at the Super Bowl.
A pre-recorded video of Alicia Keys' rendition of the song played before the 2021 game, and in the past three years it has been performed live before kickoff by the likes of Mary Mary, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and most recently Andra Day in 2024.
Before Super Bowl LIX between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans on Sunday, the Grammy-award winning artist Ledisi performed the song written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900.
Ledisi, 52, won a Grammy in 2021 for Best Traditional R&B Performance for 'Anything For You.' She's also a New Orleans native.
Here's her performance of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing.'
🙏 @ledisi performs 'Lift Every Voice And Sing' prior to Super Bowl LIX pic.twitter.com/LapZMgywZQ
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) February 9, 2025
This star-studded Super Bowl will feature a halftime performance from Kendrick Lamar, who recently took home his own collection of Grammys.
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Chicago Tribune
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Renee Ferguson, longtime investigative reporter for WMAQ-Ch. 5, dies
Renee Ferguson spent more than 25 years as a reporter on two Chicago television stations, and she made history as the first Black woman to work as an investigative reporter on TV in Chicago. During her career, Ferguson, who also cofounded the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, established herself as one of Chicago's premier investigative reporters, winning seven Chicago Emmy awards plus an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for investigative reporting. 'Renee had this incredible ability to convince the powers that be in the newsroom to give her these really interesting assignments,' said former WBBM-Channel 2 director of community affairs Monroe Anderson, a longtime friend. 'She knew how to work things out. She was really talented. And she was a good reporter.' Ferguson, 75, died Friday while in home hospice care, said WMAQ-Channel 5 news anchor and reporter Marion Brooks, a close friend. She had been a longtime Chicago resident. An Oklahoma native, Ferguson graduated in 1967 from Douglass High School in Oklahoma City. She then earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Indiana University in 1971. 'Renee and I were the only two Black students in the journalism department at Indiana University (at that time),' Anderson recalled. After college, Ferguson worked as a writer for the Indianapolis Star before taking a job at a TV station, WLWI-TV, in Indianapolis in 1972. She spent five years at the station, which in 1976 took on the call letters WTHR-TV, and worked alongside a young, wisecracking weather forecaster named David Letterman, who would go on to national fame. In 1977, Ferguson joined WBBM-Channel 2 as a reporter. While at the station, she drew national headlines for an investigative piece she reported that debunked the highly acclaimed Westside Preparatory School founder and teacher Marva Collins. 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WMAQ-Channel 5 hired Ferguson as an investigative reporter in 1987, bringing her back to Chicago. 'She really was so authentic and people trusted her and she had this uncanny ability to create a space that made people really open up to her. She had that sort of Oprah-esque vibe where people would just share with her,' Brooks said. 'She also had great instincts — she knew when to follow the trail.' One of Ferguson's early reports was 'Project Africa,' which was the product of an idea Ferguson had with a Near West Side elementary school principal in which they would bring nine children from Chicago's toughest streets to Africa for two weeks. The project required students wanting to take the trip to commit themselves to extra attendance both before and after school to study French, photography and West African culture. 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Later work included reports on strip searches of Black women at O'Hare International Airport, which in 1999 won Ferguson and her producer, Sarah Stolper, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for investigative reporting. 'That was amazing work,' Brooks said. In 1996, a young Chicago man, Tyrone Hood, was convicted of murder and armed robbery in the 1993 slaying of an Illinois Institute of Technology basketball star. Hood insisted that he had nothing to do with it, and Ferguson concluded that Hood was innocent and that another man had been the murderer. Ferguson reported numerous stories about the case, all with Whittaker's support. She continued that advocacy even after retiring, and eventually then-Gov. Pat Quinn commuted Hood's lengthy prison sentence. 'Her work was able to get him out of prison,' Whittaker said. 'She just really believed in helping when people reached out, and she had a true soul for it. It was ingrained in her.' 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