'The Star-Spangled Banner's' racist lyrics reflect its slave owner author, Francis Scott Key

[sheshe2]

My note: This article is from 2018. This why they kneel. I can offer a few paragraphs that won't tell the whole story. Read it if you will.

snip

Whatever side you’re on, we all need to know the roots of “The Star-Spangled Banner” anthem run deep in slavery’s soil. How deep is seldom told.

It might seem like Key is up past his historical bedtime. But the backstory and crosscurrents of the anthem are as unresolved as the NFL player challenges still likely to come on game days.

snip

Lawyer-poet Key, born to massive slaveholding wealth in Maryland, was one of the richest men in America. He liked it that way.

As he grew older and darker, Key sought to buttress slavery, known as our own “peculiar institution.” He did just that, past his last breath. The U.S. Supreme Court, which he helped shape, stood strongly for slavery. So beside the anthem, his political legacy as a critical political player in upholding slavery is devastating.

In his 50s, Key became an adviser to President Andrew Jackson, who was also a wealthy self-made Southern slaveholder.

At the same time, Key was named by Jackson as the U.S. district attorney for the nation’s capital, where he prosecuted race and slavery laws to the fullest extent, even to the death penalty. He also aggressively prosecuted early abolitionists, who had founded the anti-slavery movement in 1833.


Read More: https://theundefeated.com/features/the-star-spangled-banners-racist-lyrics-reflect-its-slaveowner-author-francis-scott-key/

[Hekate]

1. It was never the best, or only, choice. America the Beautiful was in the running, iirc, and remains

...a better song

[Cirque du So-What]

2. The time is right for an upgrade to our national anthem

Keep the neoconfederates busy defending the indefensible.