Well, it is
still the national anthem, all four verses of Key's poem.
It has not been memory holed yet.
And my point still stands: you think they would have shut down those other choirs I mentioned for singing
all of the national anthem?
That said, unlike, say, the roads built and designed by Robert Moses, that we discussed once before, I see no overtly "racist" line in the second verse (or any verse).
I'm assuming this is the line in question, which is actually in the
third verse:
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution!
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave
"Their blood", in this context, are American soldiers.
"Their foul footsteps", are the steps of the invading British troops.
Key is saying, in his patriotic fervor, that the fight that his fellow country men gave the British, will defeat them, and will not save their mercenaries or hired slaves.
There is
nothing racist about that statement.
Complete version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" showing spelling and punctuation
from Francis Scott Key's manuscript in the Maryland Historical Society collection.
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
'Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
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.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto - "In God is our trust,"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Let me ask you this: We both have sons who are young men now.
If Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent armed troops out all across America, and in every town and city started randomly dragging off in chains, randomly chosen young men of a fighting age, the same age as our sons, and then shipped them off to fight as conscripts in the Russian - Ukrainian war, under threat of death, would you consider it an act of war?
Because that is what the British had been doing to our merchant seamen and fishermen, by the thousands, for years up until the war.
Congress lawfully declared war for that reason and the economic reasons that went along with it, and as a strategy of war, then invaded Canada, to hopefully use that as a bargaining chip to force the British to acquiesce to our demands.
One of the primary ones being: the cessation of enslaving seamen
Connect With Us