He wrote the “Star Spangled Banner” in September 1814 and it became immediately popular.Īmazingly, the song was the product of a humiliation. Key had become famous almost by accident. He was, in the words of a friend, a distressingly serious man. He worked on behalf of this racial dream for more than 20 years. Key believed the solution to the slavery problem was to free the enslaved Africans and get rid of them by helping them colonize Africa. He saw them as a shiftless and untrustworthy population - a nuisance to white people. In his career as lawyer and public servant, Key spoke publicly of Africans in America as “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”
What is far less known are his views on race. It is well known that Francis Scott Key is the author of the famous words “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” He wrote those words in 1814 and, ever since 1931, they have been sung as the national anthem of the United States.
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