‘Till their foes fled dismayed from the war’s desolation:Īnd pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscuredīy the light of the Star Spangled flag of our nation. In the conflict resistless, each toil they endured,
Pay particular attention to the racist delight taken in the bloody victory over the “infidels”: raids against Muslim nations in North Africa from 1801 to 1805. Check out some lines from another song he wrote a decade before “the Star-Spangled Banner” to honor the U.S. The song was not only penned by a racist and militarist, but also the struggle to have Key’s song made the national anthem was led by racists for racist reasons.īut first, a little more about Key. It is no coincidence that a wave of reactionary protest has greeted 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s courageous and righteous stand against racist police terror. What can be added to this is the fact that the history of the national anthem, which was not adopted until 1931, also reveals the deeply racist character of this nation.
In 1812, the “land of the free” did not include Black people, women or, in fact, most white men-a majority of whom were legally barred from voting in the 1812 elections.įrancis Scott Key, the author of the national anthem, was a slave owner and white supremacist. The truth is that the national anthem was not only written to glorify a military victory but also to glorify a slave nation, the United States, dominated by a class of land-owning gentry. Everyone should know that the third verse of “the Star-Spangled Banner” glorifies the killing of slaves fighting for their freedom as part of the British army: “Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution/No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave/And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave/O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
I recently read the widely-shared article published on The Intercept by Jon Schwarz entitled, “Colin Kaepernick is Righter Than you Know: The National Anthem is a Celebration of Slavery.”
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