The Star-Spangled Banner and what it Truly Stands For
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018)
See the Supreme Court decision killing the Voting Rights Act, April 27, 2026; & see State Sen. Morris(R) LA, to Black voting rights supporters: "Shut up, Boy!"
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"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO." (S. Jonas, July 2025)
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"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Martin Niemoller (c. 1946)
Introduction.
June 14, 2026 is a date that will be remembered for many reasons. It is Flag Day, 2026, a national holiday originally founded by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. It is also, unfortunately for the increasing number of U.S. who are opposed to Donald Trump and what he has done to and with the Presidency of the United States, as was December 7, 1941, a "date that shall live in infamy." For it is the date of his 80th birthday. It is also the date on which, not believable to many U.S., a "cage-match" "athletic event" will be held on the lawn in front of the White House. That is an event that will be remembered for as long as the memory of Trump and TrumpRepubloFascism remain in the annals of U.S. history, as perhaps the worst symbolic desecration of U.S. Democracy in our history. (See also the cover of The New Yorker for June 15, 2026, which has an illustration of a cage match between Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance with Trump sitting in a ring-side seat --- asleep).
It is a date which has has a special to me ever since I was a small child, for it was the birthday of my maternal grandfather, Jacob Kyzor, a Jewish immigrant who came to this country in 1895 from the East End of London. June 14 is also the date on which a special celebration is given for our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was composed in 1814 to celebrate the then-new flag of our then-new nation.
And so, for this date, I am re-running a somewhat edited version of a column about the anthem and the flag and what they truly stand for. That column was originally published on November 8, 2017.
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It is well-known that for some weeks now President Trump has used the "Star-Spangled Banner" as a verbal battering ram against (mainly African American) athletes in a variety of (mainly professional) sports. During its playing at the beginning of sporting events, some athletes are using one form or another of non-verbal expression to protest various aspects of U.S. society's treatment of African Americans and other minorities.
Trump doesn't like protest, when it comes from minorities and their non-minority allies. (Protests from "whites," around such issues as the removal of monuments which in one way or another memorialize the War-to-Preserve-Slavery, are just fine for Trump.) He assumes that the song now named the National Anthem of the United States was a) written for that purpose and b) is intended specifically to honor the U.S. military and the men and women (well, for Trump likely women not-so-much) who serve and have served in it (which, of course, as is well-known, he did not --- by choice). As for the symbolism of the flag that forms the focus of the Anthem, Trump apparently doesn't see that symbolism extending to the foundational values of the nation of which he is currently President. But when one looks at the history of the Anthem, one sees something well beyond what Trump's oh-so-limited vision of the United States of America enables him to see.
And so, let's take a look at that history and what it means, in both the positive and negatives senses --- negative, that is, for those who believe that the U.S. is a pluralistic society and who also believe that chattel slavery was a blight upon it and its history from which it is yet to recover.
For a summary of the history of the Anthem, I am indebted, believe it or not, to an article published in Sports Illustrated on May 29, 2017, by Austin Murphy, entitled "Free Verse." I am further indebted to my son, Coach Jacob Jonas, for noting the article and sending it to me. The song is well-known around the world as the National Anthem of the United States of America. It is also well-known that it was written during the battle of the defense of Fort McHenry, at Baltimore Harbor, during the War of 1812. As it happened also, the writer of the lyrics was not a songwriter, but rather an attorney named Francis Scott Key who was there at the time on a minor diplomatic mission.
What is not so well-known, and certainly not known by the history/knowledge-challenged current President of the United States, are certain other aspects of it and of its history. The tune that for some reason or another Key chose to set his lyrics to was a mid-18th century English drinking song that celebrated the exploits of a Greek hedonist named Anacreon. For sure, Trump wants to make sure that the right-wing Christian element of his base never finds out about that.
Although the tune is rather difficult to sing properly because of its vocal range, it became quite popular throughout the 19th century, as a symbol of the rapidly developing growth of a nation which had fully established its independence from Great Britain following the war in which the battle of Fort McHenry played a significant role. But its place as the "National Anthem" was not established until the great U.S. marching-band leader and march-music composer of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, John Phillip Sousa, determined to do just that. And he indeed did.
The singing of the Anthem at sporting events began during the 1918 Baseball World Series, in Fenway Park, Boston. It did not come into widespread such use until the 1960s. Some of the Anthem's singers hold on one particular word in it, 'free," a word that appears repeatedly in it, for as long as they can. For that is what many singers of the Anthem around the nation hold to be its central value. Of course, this a value for which Trump and his acolytes, both rich and poor, have little interest, except for themselves.
However, when one gets into the lyrics of the later verses (and there are four of them --- only the first is sung as the "Anthem"), there are mentions with which Trump and the Trumpites might be rather more comfortable. For in the third verse, referring to companies of former slaves who were fighting on the British side in return for a promise of freedom at the war's end (with victory for the British, of course), appear the words "No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave . . ." And in the fourth verse are the words "Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation [!]" clearly referring only to those in the new nation who were indeed free men.
So, it is not all about freedom, in a nation that throughout its history down to the present has denied to specific sectors of its population what is supposed to be one of its basic values. Which reality is precisely what many professional athletes were protesting about at the time this article was originally written.
Finally, in terms of lesser-known facts about the Anthem, while it is true that it has been played for sporting events for a long time, and at them sometimes associated with the military and war, especially in time of war, the modern association between the Anthem, the National Football League, and very broad military displays was not cemented until 2009 when the Department of Defense started paying the League to link it with the opening ceremonies, which also featured the playing of the Anthem.
BUT. And here we come to the symbolism of what might be called the "Colin Kaepernick Protests" (for he was the first professional athlete --- a National Football League quarterback --- to do so). The term "land of the free" (emphasis added, Mr. Trump) appears repeatedly throughout the four verses and the song ends with the words: "And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." However, it was --- and still is, in some quarters at least --- an idealized U.S. concept of "freedom" that first and foremost the flag stands for, not some concept of military glory and might (as much as Trump and the MAGA-Trumpsters might want it to be the latter).
And thus on this June 14, the true believers in what "liberty" is supposed to stand for in the United States can celebrate the true meaning of "political and legal freedom" for all U.S. as, for example, set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; the flag and what it is supposed to stand for; and the values set forth in the first verse of the Anthem. And in conclusion, I also celebrate the memory of my wonderful Grandpa, Jacob Kyzor, who, most likely Yiddish-speaking, emigrated to the U.S. from the East End of London in 1895.