[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by blueash

Let's compare lyrics

Lift Every Voice evokes images and faith that those brought here in chains are now Americans and have faith that this country will continue to move toward equality. It is a very pro-American song acknowledging the suffering of the past and the promise of this nation to make it right.

"We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast....
True to our native land. "

or the SBB which has this lovely verse celebrating the death of slaves and pointedly saying that the "land of the free" does not and should not include slaves as free fully realized people.

Francis Scott Key, a slaveholder, had shortly before writing the poem seen a British unit of freed Black slaves win a crucial battle against Americans in the War of 1812.

"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."

Which America is more worthy of praise? Which song speaks to aspirations of an honorable, decent, and free nation?

SBB? Do you mean Star Spangled Banner (SSB)?

Whatever Key may have felt about slavery, the SSB does not comment on it at all. The stanza you quote makes a prediction about those fighting for the British side, not every employee and slave in the states.

Both songs are admirable. One is a song of hoping to achieve liberty through battle written at a time the battle was occurring. The other is a song of hope after having achieved liberty. If we put chest-beating and racism aside, you could almost imagine the SSB as the pre-1814 song and "Lift Every Voice.." as the post-1815 song (though it wasn't written until the 1900s).