CLAUDE MCKAY
Once again, the “Black National Anthem—Lift Every Voice and Sing” was performed before the Super Bowl, and, once again, conservatives expressed their displeasure as soon as the singer finished.
Megyn Kelly, a talk show host, posted that America already has a national anthem that includes everyone, implying that the Black national anthem promotes division. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) posted, “Wife: Today is the Super Bowl! Me: We’re not watching. Wife: Why? Me: They’re degrading the national anthem by playing something called the Black National Anthem.”
Clearly, these two people opted to start a skirmish in the right-left cultural conflict because they believe the NFL is catering to their “anti-American” political opponents.
Supporters of the NFL’s decision to include Lift Every Voice and Sing in the Super Bowl pre-game pageantry have cited historical facts to discredit these views.
Lawyer and poet James Weldon Johnson wrote Lift Every Voice and Sing in 1900, and his brother, a musician, arranged the music to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The song honors the first Republican president who defeated the Confederacy and preserved the union.
The claim that the song promotes division is absurd.
Rep. Gaetz made it apparent that he had no idea there was a Black national anthem. He assumed it was a recent “woke” invention to compete with the Star-Spangled Banner. However, this is not the case; the NAACP declared Lift Every Voice and Sing the Black national anthem in 1919. That was 12 years before the Star-Spangled Banner became the United States’ national anthem.
The historical facts are excellent rebuttals, but the facts lack depth. They don’t explain why the song became the Black national anthem in 1919.
Two major events preceded this critical year. First, during the Great Migration, Black individuals fled the South to avoid Jim Crow and seek better economic opportunities in the North and…
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