Patriotic rituals and songs, intended to evoke a sense of national unity and pride, are common in schools and community events across the United States. Many teachers lead daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance, and athletic events and ceremonial functions typically begin with a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Patriotic songs sometimes have complex origins and histories that reflect the social and political realities of our American past – history that should be examined and taught with honesty and objectivity. These songs can teach powerful lessons about context and perspective.
All creative works bear the imprint of their cultural and historical contexts, and it is impossible to fully understand a song without having a sense of who created it and why. We must also reckon with the subjectivity we bring to the experience of a song, regardless of its creator’s original intent. When we explore this music with openness to its complexity, we confront the various voices, functions and stories that a single patriotic song can embody.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” is a perfect place to begin this exploration. Among the countless performances of the national anthem, two are especially iconic. In August 1969, Jimi Hendrix played an unforgettable rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock. Hendrix used his electric guitar to perform what many saw as a scathing commentary on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He interspersed the phrases of the national anthem with sounds that mimicked exploding bombs, pealing sirens and the melancholy strains of taps. The context of the historical time, venue and audience have led to interpretations of this performance as being anti-war dissent. In 1991, Whitney Houston performed the national anthem to widespread acclaim for her inspiring and flawless vocal delivery at the Super Bowl XXV halftime show dedicated to honoring troops in the Gulf War. While Hendrix’s performance is often considered a protest, Houston’s is viewed as a tribute. The complexity of historical perspective can encourage dialogue, not only about the creative work and its performance but also the context of audience and intention.
Composed in 1814 by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, the lyrics that became the national anthem were written as a poem that was later set to music and renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In 1931, more than a hundred years later, at a time following World War I and the beginnings of the Great Depression, the song was adopted as the national anthem. Key’s song reflected a romanticized moment of the American past before the Civil War, which made it appealing in the efforts to energize a narrative of unity.
When Key wrote of the “land of the free and the home of the brave” in 1814, most African American people were enslaved. Key described himself as a reluctant and benevolent enslaver, and he expressed doubt that people of African descent had the capacity to participate as equals in American democracy. A largely forgotten third verse in “The Star-Spangled Banner” is an indication of Key’s mindset:
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.
Key voiced his conviction that emancipation for enslaved people would result in their ruin. As a founding member of the American Colonization Society, Key believed that the “Negro problem” could be solved by shipping Black people back to Africa.
John Brown (1800-59), a younger contemporary of Key’s, embraced a radically different solution to the slavery problem. While Key favored expelling African American people from the U.S., Brown favored abolition and equality. Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in October 1859 was a failed attempt to overthrow slavery, but his valiant efforts were celebrated in a song with these lyrics:
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save
But though he sleeps, his life was lost while struggling for the slave
His soul is marching on.
During the Civil War, Union soldiers popularized this version of the song, but Confederates used the same tune to insert pro-slavery lyrics. Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist, finally adapted the tune to the lyrics of what is now known as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” with its familiar refrain, “Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on!”
“The Star Spangled Banner” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” both show how the issue of enslavement weighed on the 19th century national consciousness. Twentieth century patriotic music embodies stories of our nation’s continuing struggle with racial and ethnic differences. Along with anti-Black racism, intense hatred of the “other” took many forms. Immigrants fleeing Europe for the U.S., for example, often sought safety from discrimination by concealing their ethnic identities. In the 1890s, Israel Baline moved with his family to the U.S. after an antisemitic mob destroyed their home. He grew up in New York, and by his early 20s, he had replaced his Jewish birth name with “Irving Berlin.”
Berlin joined the ranks of patriotic songwriters with his release of “God Bless America,” the original version of which he penned in 1918 while serving in the military during World War I. It was singer Kate Smith, however, who popularized the modern version of “God Bless America” in 1938 when she performed it live on her national broadcast.
In the early 20th century, antebellum norms of racial inequality took on new forms, and anti-Black racism created new pathways to commercial success. Like many of her generation, Smith capitalized on this reality, with widely known performances of anti-Black tunes. Sadly, Smith was not unique in the practice of anti-Black expression in popular culture. Well into the middle of the century, American popular songs were replete with racial stereotypes – particularly in the U.S. minstrel tradition, the first form of mass popular entertainment in the nation – in lyrics usually intended to be lighthearted and funny.
Bert Williams is perhaps the most well known of the African American artists who adapted these racist norms to their own use. Others included Bob Cole and John Rosamond Johnson (discussed later as co-creator of the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing”). These Black artists, following the practice white minstrel performers used, blackened their own skin with burnt cork, widened their lips, and adapted the self-deprecating, caricatured conventions of minstrelsy to achieve commercial gain at a time when most doorways to prosperity were closed to African Americans.
“God Bless America” was the sentiment of a Jewish songwriter who, through deliberate assimilation, found refuge, access, opportunity and upward mobility that were not possible for him in his native Russia. The song resonated with people who had access to the American dream. This dream, however, was out of reach for many Americans of color. In 1938 – the same year that Berlin and Smith confirmed the place of “God Bless America” among the canon of patriotic songs – the Federal Housing Administration erected a barrier that would thwart economic opportunity for African Americans for generations to come. Its 1938 Underwriting Manual sanctioned restrictive housing covenants favoring white homeownership. The federal government’s facilitation of redlined communities, together with its systematically race-based lending practices, prevented many African American people from homeownership and its attendant economic benefits. From Reconstruction well into the 1960s, many African American people faced danger when attempting to exercise their right to vote, and they had no equal protection under the law. Those who dared to advance themselves and build their communities often faced violence and oppression as reactions to their efforts at self-uplift.
Woody Guthrie recognized the class disparities in the U.S., and his “This Land Is Your Land,” written in 1940 and recorded in 1944, was said to have been in protest to Berlin’s “God Bless America.” According to anthropology professor and folklorist Nick Spitzer, the original title of Guthrie’s tune was “God Bless America for Me.” Its lyrics addressed class discrimination, hunger and poverty, and its refrain asserts that “this land was made for you and me.” Although Guthrie’s song underscored the plight of many Depression-era Americans, it was initially unclear that he considered Indigenous Americans, African Americans and other people of color to be rightful co-owners of the land in question. Evidence suggests that Guthrie’s views on race evolved over time. According to author Scott Borchert, Woody Guthrie “like many whites from the same background … was casually racist as a young man, and sometimes performed degrading minstrel songs during his early years on the radio.” Borchert explains that Guthrie’s sensitivity evolved to the point where he eventually became an outspoken opponent of bigotry.
Black people have held stubbornly to our nation’s frequently broken promises. This stalwart hope emerges in the lyrics of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the “Black National Anthem.” John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) and James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) composed the song in 1900 for children at the Jacksonville, Florida, school where the two brothers taught. For nearly 125 years, the song has resonated with Afro-descendant people who find its message aligned with both the harsh reality of Blackness in the U.S. and a persistent hope in what our country can be:
Lift every voice and sing
Til earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmony 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 till victory is won.
The ideals of liberty, freedom and bravery emerge as salient themes in the Black National Anthem just as they do in other patriotic songs.
We need to understand that patriotic songs are not simply celebrations of national greatness; they are products of a complex society constructed on a foundation of racial inequality. Music and other creative spheres are contested spaces where different experiences, beliefs, values and perspectives can clash and compete for prominence as narrative.
The current wave of anti-DEI legislation in many states across the U.S. is grounded in the racist desire to view American people as a monolith, even though history bears out that the opposite is true. As this brief exploration shows, with “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as powerful evidence, American patriotism has never been one-size-fits-all.
Educators and community leaders can facilitate dialogues across difference by using these songs to teach honest history. They should challenge young people to think critically about the narratives associated with these songs and help students realize their power to interrogate those narratives. Most importantly, they should help young people develop the enduring understanding that context, experience and perspective all shape the complex, fluid and multifarious nature of American identity.