The Black national anthem was born more than a century ago, but the popular hymn within the African American community called “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has resurrected a beacon of hope during nationwide protests in recent weeks.

Amid thousands of protests against police brutality and a pandemic that has disproportionately ravaged communities of color, many people planned to spend Fourth of July drawing attention to what they say is a hypocritical celebration of freedom.

Thousands of people expressed interest in a Facebook event for a "George Floyd Memorial March on Washington," which began Saturday morning.

The Independence Day holiday "doesn’t really mean anything when Black people weren't free on July 4th and those same liberties weren't afforded to us," said Kerrigan Williams, co-founder of Freedom Fighters D.C., who has been co-organizing marches in the city for at least three weeks.

Williams, who grew up in Houston, said she used to mark the Fourth of July with family cookouts.

The family's real celebration, Williams said, was on Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, when Galveston, Texas, finally got the news that President Abraham Lincoln had freed enslaved people in rebel states two and a half years earlier.

Amy Yeboah, a professor of Africana Studies at Howard University, said she planned to spend the holiday by joining a sit-in outside the Supreme Court. .

"We're honoring Black women – the lives that have been lost to police brutality – but also the blind eye that America has to the injustices that face Black women," Yeboah said, invoking the names of Breonna Taylor, Rekia Boyd and Aiyana Jones, who were fatally shot by police.

"This being the celebration of independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I’ll be talking about how these are not things Black women have been given the space to celebrate," Yeboah said.

In Chicago, nearly 2,000 people had expressed interest in a Facebook event for a rally and march downtown. Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef, an activist and South Side resident who planned the protest, said he grew up celebrating the Fourth of July with family, watching fireworks and having barbecues.

A violinist was also expected to play the Black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Yosef had prepared a banner for the march bearing the face of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and his famous words – "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?".

In Brooklyn, New York, activists planned a "Confronting July 4th" march and rally to honor Black and indigenous activists, saying they "refuse to celebrate the whitewashing of this country."

"So much of it is still relevant," Macellaro said. "What does the Fourth of July mean to people who are still oppressed, marginalized – who don’t have all the freedoms we’re supposed to have in this country?"

You have to risk (for) that," said Williams, who said she is immunocompromised