James Weldon Johnson Playground

The James Weldon Johnson Playground takes its name from a multifaceted figure of the Harlem Renaissance who served as an author, educator, and civil rights activist. In nineteen hundred, Johnson composed the poem Lift Evry Voice and Sing, which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People later adopted as the Negro National Anthem. His legacy is deeply tied to this neighborhood, where he lived and worked to secure legislative protections against lynching during his time as a high-ranking official within the civil rights movement.