What Doesn’t MAGA Know About the ‘Black National Anthem’? A Lot
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.
There’s more, but these opening verses are most often sung at churches, schools and other public gatherings in my lifelong African American experience.
I have always sung it and heard it the way my schoolteacher grandmother taught it, not just as a vehicle for us to sing the blues about our suffering and victimization as a people, but as a rallying cry to our resilience and determination.
Yet the MAGA culture warriors insist on making a simple gesture of outreach sound like something sinister, threatening and even racist. Like the other culture war battlefronts over Confederate statues and the teaching of Black history to our children, the “Black national anthem” dust-up is a contest for power.
Worse, it is used to fan the flames of cultural xenophobia, as if interracial relations have to be a zero-sum game, in which no race can advance itself without some other race losing.
Instead, folks, let’s lift every voice — until victory is won.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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