Sunday, August 28, 2016

Racist History of the National Anthem

The War of 1812 was a military conflict that lasted from June 18, 1812 to February 18, 1815. It was fought between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, its North American colonies, and its North American Indian allies (as usual, Americans are the instigators and antagonist of wars for profit and control).

 Late victories over invading British armies at the battles of Plattsburgh, Baltimore (inspiring the United States national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner") and New Orleans produced a sense of euphoria over a second war of independence against Britain.

The war was a major turning point in the development of the U.S. military, with militia being increasingly replaced by a more professional force. The U.S. also acquired permanent ownership of Spain's Mobile District, although Spain was not a belligerent (a belligerent is an individual, group, country, or other entity that acts in a hostile manner, such as engaging in combat... the word Belligerent comes from Latin, literally meaning "one who wages war," see the United States of America).

Star-Spangled Banner

The national anthem has four verses. The version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” traditionally sung on patriotic occasions and at sporting events is only the song’s first verse. All four verses conclude with the same line: "O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

'By the dawn’s early light' on September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key peered through a spyglass and spotted an American flag still waving over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry after a fierce night of British bombardment. In a patriotic fervor, the man called "Frank" Key by family and friends penned the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The song was not originally entitled “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Key scrawled his lyrics on the back of a letter he pulled from his pocket on the morning of September 14 and did not give it a title. Within a week, Key’s verses were printed on broadsides and in Baltimore newspapers under the title "Defence of Fort M'Henry." In November, a Baltimore music store printed the patriotic song with sheet music for the first time under the more lyrical title "The Star-Spangled Banner." A century later, it became Americas National Anthem.

Americans generally get a failing grade when it comes to knowing our “patriotic songs.” I know more people who can recite “America, F–k Yeah” from Team America than “America the Beautiful.” No one older than a fifth-grader in chorus class remembers the full song. “God Bless America”? More people know the Rev. Jeremiah Wright remix than the actual full lyrics of the song. Most black folks don’t even know "the black national anthem." (There’s a great story about Bill Clinton being at an NAACP meeting where he was the only one who knew it past the first line.)

In the case of our national anthem, perhaps not knowing the full lyrics is a good thing. It is one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon, and you would be wise to cut it from your Fourth of July playlist.

All of these ideas and concepts came together around Aug. 24, 1815, at the Battle of Bladensburg, where Key, who was serving as a lieutenant at the time, ran into a battalion of British Corps Colonial Marines. His troops were taken to the woodshed by the very black folks he disdained, and he fled back to his home in Georgetown to lick his wounds. The British troops, emboldened by their victory in Bladensburg, then marched into Washington, D.C., burning the Library of Congress, the Capitol Building and the White House. You can imagine that Key was very much in his feelings seeing black soldiers trampling on the city he so desperately loved.

A few weeks later, in September of 1815, far from being a captive, Key was on a British boat begging for the release of one of his friends, a doctor named William Beanes. Key was on the boat waiting to see if the British would release his friend when he observed the bloody battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore on Sept. 13, 1815. America lost the battle but managed to inflict heavy casualties on the British in the process. This inspired Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner” right then and there, but no one remembers that he wrote a full third stanza decrying the former slaves who were now working for the British army:
  • And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion A home and a Country should leave us no more? 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.
In other words, Key was saying that the blood of all the former slaves and "hirelings" on the battlefield will wash away the pollution of the British invaders. With Key still bitter that black soldiers got the best of him, he wrote the "Star-Spangled Banner." It is as much a patriotic song as it is a diss track to black people who had the audacity to fight for their freedom. Perhaps that’s why it took almost 100 years for the song to become the national anthem.

To hear more of the story, there is an excellent short documentary about the history of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by some students at Morgan State University. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to switch up your Fourth of July patriotic playlist. The Star-Spangled Banner was not intended for people of color. 

Sources: