8/23/2023 0 Comments Was francis scott key a racistPolitical pundits explain that Trump's strategy is to distract the public from his failure to act on other important issues. ![]() The problem with that view is that he is shaking things up by taking the country back to a time when it was so divided that it resulted in states breaking up the union over the issue of slavery with a resulting civil war. We sent him to the White House to shake things up. Trump supporters dismiss such statements by essentially saying we did not elect him to be a conventional president. Trump considers any black athlete and any supporter who takes a stand against America's history of oppression against its black population to be a "son of bitch." During Key's day, the black slaves in America were considered to be nothing more than "property" by the slavers. Last week, President Trump expressed the malign desire that the black athletes and their supporters who exercise their constitutional right of free speech by taking a knee during the playing of the anthem be fired by the NFL owners. The author of the Harper article thought that his relative, the admiral, should be recognized in America as one of the "great emancipators."ĭuring the War of 1812, Key declared what Cockburn wrote in his article was a "malign" desire, now celebrated as part of the national anthem, that the slaves freed by Admiral Cockburn would find no refuge to escape their former masters, or be killed. Slaves in America at this time had been dehumanized into just being items of property.Īdmiral Cockburn took the former slaves with him when he left America. At the end of the war, Admiral Cockburn refused the American request to return "all American property." This so-called "property" included about 6,000 former slaves freed by the admiral according to Cockburn's article. the admiral did free slaves and enlisted a number of them to fight alongside his military force. Madison (the then American president) will be hurled from his throne." With them properly armed and backed with 20,000 British troops, Mr. The great point to be attained is the cordial support of the Black Population. ![]() He was, according to Cockburn, under orders to "Let the landings you make be more for the protection of the Black Population than with a view to any other advantage. Andrew Cockburn's article in the September 2014 edition of Harper's Magazine tells the story of the slavery context behind these lines.Ĭockburn wrote that a relative of his, Admiral Sir George Cockburn headed up a British military force that landed in this country during the war. And, again so far, it seems that most residents take it at face value.Īccording to reporting in the Baltimore Sun, Pugh has already tasked art experts with determining the cost of restoring the statue.Slavery was a strong American institution at the time of this war with the British when Frances Scott Key wrote the words, including these lines, for what later became the national anthem. While it is impossible to deny that Key expended a good deal of energy in his life upholding white supremacy, the monument in Bolton Hill was intended as a commemoration of the Battle of Baltimore and its enduring importance as the inspiration for the national anthem. ![]() If we accept that these statues have never been mere memorials to Southern history but were intended from the start as intimidating shrines to white supremacy and segregation, the decision to remove them becomes much simpler. Another wave went up as a reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. In a recent study, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that a large number of Confederate statues were installed in the early 20th century as symbols of Jim Crow. The most compelling argument for removing statues of Confederate icons from public space points to their purpose at the time they were erected. The defacement consisted of splashes of red paint and spray-painted messages, such as “Slave Owner” and “Racist Anthem,” a reference to the poem’s unsung third stanza which boasts that “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,” referring to the black former slaves among the British ranks in the War of 1812.ĭespite Key’s history as a slave owner and aggressive anti-abolitionist, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and, so far, much of the public are disinclined to have the statue taken down.
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