The NFL once blackballed Colin Kaepernick for his NFL anthem stand. Now, after weeks of protests after deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor put race issues on the front burner, they seemingly want to bend over backward to make amends.
First, league commissioner Roger Goodell responded to a video from several of the league’s players asking him to unequivocally support Black Lives Matter. He did. Then he said that he supports any team that wants to sign Kaepernick, despite the four years he’s been absent from the league.
Now multiple reports suggest that the league will play “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, unofficially known as the Black national anthem, before a preseason game. Predictably that has made some NFL fans upset. #BoycottNFL was trending on Friday afternoon.
Below is are just a few examples of the response:
As reported by Sports Illustrated, Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Chris Conley who was among the team’s players who lead a peaceful protest walk through the city, took to Twitter to explain why he approved the league’s move to acknowledge the Black community and by extension, its Black players who make up 75% of the league.
“The league taking the opportunity to play “Lift every voice and sing” (the black national anthem) is sweet. It’s a great way to honor those who started this movement year and years ago,” Conley said via his Twitter account on Friday.
The real song:
All 3 verses: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 bombs 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.
How did the “Star-Spangled Banner” become the US national anthem?
In 1814, the poet and lyricist Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” originally known as “Defense of Fort M’Henry.” During the War of 1812, Key witnessed the attacks on Baltimore and wrote the words based on his experiences this night. These lyrics were printed in local newspapers and set to the tune of an existing song called “Anacreon in Heaven,” and then officially arranged by John Philip Sousa. Key’s famous lyrics entered the world as a broadside ballad, or a song written on a topical subject, and printed for wide distribution.
More than a century later, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order designating “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem, and in 1931, the US Congress confirmed the decision. The tune has kicked off ceremonies of national importance and athletic events ever since. This same racist as President Woodrow Wilson that loved birth of nation racist ass movie.
The Poem
Lift Every Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson
Lift ev’ry voice and sing
‘Til earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on ’til victory is won
Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast
God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light
Keep us forever in the path, we pray
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee
Shadowed beneath Thy hand
May we forever stand
True to our God
True to our native land
Lift Every Voice and Sing – often called “The Black National Anthem” – was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1899.
Marvin Gaye
Whitney Houston:
10 best:
June’s Diary Lift Every Voice and Sing:
June’s Diary – Stay (Jodeci Cover)
June’s Diary – I Ain’t With It
June’s Diary – L.A.N.C.E.
June’s Diary Sings Beyoncé, En Vogue and Katy Perry In A Game Of Song Association | ELLE
The real verses of the National Anthem sang:
