francis scott key was a piece of shit!

[bentech]

damn!!!

1836, 'Home of the Oppressed'

When the American anti-slavery movement emerged in the 1830s, abolitionists set their sights on eliminating slavery in Washington D.C., where Francis Scott Key, the author of the famous song, served as district attorney.

Key deployed his patriotic celebrity to advance a racist version of American justice. Between 1833 and 1840, Key persecuted the abolitionists who dared advocate for human rights in the shadow of the Capitol dome. To prove his pro-slavery politics, Key sought to hang a young black man for a crime he did not commit (a story I tell in my book, Snow-Storm in August: Washington City Francis Scott Key and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835).

In response, the abolitionists mocked Key for the hypocrisy of his lyrics. An 1836 broadsheet highlighting the crimes associated with slavery in Washington came with the headline “Land of the Free, Home of the Oppressed.”

Key was indignant. Expressing such thoughts in the nation’s capital was sedition in his view and he brought charges against anyone who distributed anti-slavery publications. He was supported by President Andrew Jackson (who not coincidentally, is Trump’s favorite American president). The meaning of the "Star-Spangled Banner," its author insisted, is not compatible with racial equality.

When Trump says today’s controversy has "nothing to do with race," he is expressing the same opinion as Key: the "Star-Spangled Banner" contains no message of racial equality.


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