Uh-oh, Say Can You See?
A Fuller Story of the National Anthem
This 1912 painting, “By Dawn's Early Light” by Percy Moran, dramatizes Francis Scott Key's writing of the poem that became the national anthem. (Library of Congress)
By Pamela Hilliard Owens
During the Super Bowl LVI halftime show, rap star Eminem “took a knee” during the performance of his hit “Lose Yourself,” which did not include playing the U.S. National Anthem. “Em” said he did it to support former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick who, as a player, kneeled during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice against Black Americans. As we all know by now, Kaepernick was fired and has never played in the NFL since.
The rightwing went crazy when “Kap” and other Black and white players subsequently also took a knee and castigated them for “disrespecting the flag” and the National Anthem. The Former Guy called them “sons of bitches.”
Even though Eminem’s kneeling did not include the National Anthem, the rightwing still went crazy, and Rudy Giuliani told “Em” to “leave the country.” Classic right-wing rhetoric. But Rudy is really no match for Shady Slim:
The National Anthem Has Its Own Shady History
In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British took a doctor prisoner and later agreed to release him. Meanwhile, a 35-year-old lawyer named Francis Scott Key, who was also on the ship, overheard plans for a surprise British attack on the city of Baltimore.
Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry, but he couldn’t tell during the night who won or lost the battle. But at dawn, when Key saw the American flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes, he was inspired to write a poem that was soon set to the tune of an existing song. The original name of the poem was “The Defense of Fort M’Henry.”
But that poem and song did not become the official National Anthem for more than another one hundred years, in 1931. Although the first stanza of the song is what most people know and sing, there are actually four verses. But it is part of the third verse that is the most controversial.
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, 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! Oh 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 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:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
During the War of 1812, the British promised refuge to any enslaved Black people who escaped their enslavers and that they would be welcome to join the British Corps of Colonial Marines. That provoked fear among white Americans about a large-scale revolt, as about 4,000 people from Virginia and Maryland did escape.
But Francis Scott Key was not just a wealthy lawyer. He was also a slave-holder, and against any enslaved American escaping or otherwise getting their freedom. He considered Black people as a distinct and inferior race whose people should be shipped back to Africa if they wanted “to be free.”
Instead, the British Colonial Marines refused to return the escaped slaves and instead sent them and their families to settle in Trinidad and Tobago. Their descendants, called “Merikins,” still live there today.
Francis, Francis, Francis!
During the administration of Andrew Jackson (who himself was racist and the originator of the “Trail of Tears” even though he also developed the modern U.S. banking system), Key was the district attorney for Washington D.C. where he spent a lot of his time strengthening the power of the slaveholders. Key strictly enforced slave laws and prosecuted abolitionists.
Key also influenced Jackson to appoint his brother-in-law as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Key’s brother-in-law was Roger B. Taney, who in 1857 wrote the Dred Scott decision that said that Black people “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
In addition, Taney wrote that the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because enslaved workers were their legal property.
The decision also argued that the Missouri Compromise legislation — passed to balance the power between slave and non-slave states — was unconstitutional. In effect, this meant that Congress had no power to prevent the spread of slavery.
Because of Key’s overt racism, the song’s relationship to war and violence, and other reasons, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was deemed too controversial to be the national anthem. However, after World War I, the United Daughters of the Confederacy pushed for the song to be made the national anthem, and in 1931, Herbert Hoover did just that. At a march in Baltimore in 1931 celebrating the new National Anthem, the color guard was led by someone carrying the Confederate flag.
Also in the early 20th century, most people just cut out all but the 1st verse of the song because the remaining verses were assumed to be anti-British.
But with the increased attention paid to police brutality, racial injustice, and other failings in American history, people are looking more closely at both the 3rd verse of the anthem as well as the words “…land of the free and home of the brave…”
What Now?
Even today, there are still movements to replace “The Star-Spangled Banner” as our national anthem, possibly with “America the Beautiful” or “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” (the Black National Anthem written in 1900 and set to music in 1905 by brothers James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson.)
What do you think about “The Star-Spangled Banner” as our national anthem? Let us know in the comments.