The Editor in Chief for Yahoo Music wrote a column this week examining the history of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and suggested that the United States might want to search for a new national anthem. She also spoke with a journalist and activist who suggested replacing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Lyndsey Parker referenced several incidents that have happened in recent weeks regarding the National Anthem. First, protestors overturned a statue of “The Star-Spangled Banner’s” author Francis Scott Key in San Francisco. Also, a student at the Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts in New York refused to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a virtual graduation ceremony. Instead, Liana Morales sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which many have called the “Black National Anthem.’
Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” after observing the Battle of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Key held slaves and said that Black people were “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”
Parker spoke with Kevin Powell, an activist and journalist who starred in the first season of MTV’s The Real World. Powell cited Key’s being born into a slave-holding family, his prosecution of abolitionists during his time as a lawyer, and his friendship with…
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