Whitney Houston sings the nationwide anthem on January 27, 1991, at Tremendous Bowl XXV throughout the Persian Gulf Battle. Michael Zagaris/Getty Photos
When NFL Commissioner Elmer Layden visited the White Home in August 1945, no sitting president had ever attended knowledgeable soccer recreation. World Battle II was coming to a detailed and the commissioner offered President Harry Truman with a golden move to any recreation on any day.
Professional soccer was nonetheless in its infancy. The NFL was barely 25 years outdated, and each baseball and boxing had been extra standard. So Layden made a promise that may encourage headlines and maximize his publicity stunt. The wartime follow of taking part in “The Star-Spangled Banner” at each recreation would proceed eternally.
“The taking part in of the nationwide anthem needs to be as a lot part of each recreation because the kickoff,” he proclaimed.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” was written by Francis Scott Key in September 1814, after the Georgetown lawyer witnessed the stunning and profitable protection of Baltimore from British assault throughout the Battle of 1812. He didn’t write a poem, as most have been taught, however crafted a lyric to suit an already well-known melody. His creation is and has all the time been a track, an alloy of phrases and music to encourage hearts and alter minds.
Key’s objective was to unite a divided nation.
Nation star Religion Hill performs the nationwide anthem throughout the 2000 Tremendous Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia.
Brian Bahr/Getty Photos
A pregame ritual
For the primary time in 22 years, the Tremendous Bowl anthem this yr can be sung at a time when the nation isn’t formally at battle.
America’s troops have returned from Afghanistan. But army motion brews in Ukraine, and battles at house are waged over public well being mandates, voting rights, schoolbooks and the worth of American lives Black, white, brown and blue. American democracy is by definition a chaotic experiment, but many Individuals at present could also be united much less by patriotism than by a shared nervousness – a sense that the nation is in disaster, the worry of a breaking level.
Within the e book “O Say Can You Hear?: A Cultural Biography of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’” I discover U.S. historical past via its nationwide anthem. Chapters in my e book look at Key’s authorship, life and relationship to slavery; the origin of the tune; its long-standing use in protest and the way it turned the rallying cry of the Union. As I clarify in my e book, the Civil Battle sanctified Key’s track, making it the one viable selection because the nation’s anthem when in 1931 Congress lastly received round to declaring it so.
The primary documented efficiency of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at an American sporting occasion occurred throughout the U.S. Civil Battle. On Might 15, 1862, a brass band performed Key’s track earlier than a baseball recreation to dedicate Brooklyn’s new Union Base-Ball Grounds. The track was uncommon within the early days {of professional} baseball, as solely opening day or a championship merited the expense of hiring a band to play it. On the first World Sequence in 1903, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was performed twice in a single recreation.
World battle raised the stakes of patriotic rhetoric for professional sports activities. Throughout World Battle I, baseball executives argued that their enterprise was important to morale on the house entrance and that professional athletes needs to be exempt from the army draft. Their arguments failed. Baseball was declared “nonessential,” participant rosters had been decimated and the 1918 season lower brief.
At first of World Battle II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that baseball proceed, and in that second patriotism and the enterprise of sport turned eternally linked.
An emblem of protest
Taking part in the anthem at each recreation turned a flashpoint within the Nineteen Sixties. Curiously, the controversy arose not throughout a soccer recreation however throughout the Olympics, when, in 1968, American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their Black fists on the medal podium to protest racial injustice. By 1973, the U.S. Olympic Committee tried to skip the anthem at a qualifying meet to keep away from controversy.
The backlash was instant.
American sprinters Tommie Smith (middle) and John Carlos elevate their fists and provides the Black Energy Salute throughout the U.S. nationwide anthem on the 1968 Olympic Video games in Mexico Metropolis.
Bettmann/GettyImages
When the Vietnam Battle ended and the nation celebrated its two hundredth birthday in 1976, protests across the anthem subsided. By 1977, the NFL may safely break its promise. Tremendous Bowl organizers that yr featured “America the Stunning” as a substitute of the nationwide anthem, and no controversy ensued.
In 1991 Whitney Houston’s celebrated Tremendous Bowl XXV anthem marked a turning level, each musically and socially. Her signature association added a beat to every bar, permitting her voice to increase and soar.
Whitney Houston’s 1991 Tremendous Bowl XXV anthem is commonly cited because the track’s greatest-ever efficiency.
Her rendition was an ecstatic gospel ballad, a sacred hymn to the nation. Radiating a second of optimism because the U.S.-led army of Operation Desert Storm dominated Iraqi forces within the Persian Gulf, Houston’s voice activated a renewed wave of patriotic delight. As she sang, tens of 1000’s of individuals packed into the stadium waved miniature American flags.
A divided patriotism
Right this moment, the NFL’s promise to play the anthem at each recreation cuts each methods.
As a lawsuit boils over the hiring practices for Black coaches, the anthem has once more turn out to be a flashpoint, expressing tribal affiliation as a lot as unity. When in 2016 Colin Kaepernick knelt in protest over racial injustice and President Donald J. Trump attacked the gesture as un-American, the anthem ritual not solely served as a platform for protest however turned a divisive instrument of the tradition battle.
Earlier than the beginning of this 2016 recreation, San Francisco 49ers Eric Reid and Colin Kaepernick (#7) knelt throughout the nationwide anthem in protest of racial injustice.
Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Photos
For Tremendous Bowl LVI, three songs carried out by 4 Black American feminine vocalists will supply a musical suite of unity within the face of division.
The gospel duo Mary Mary will sing the Black nationwide anthem “Raise Each Voice and Sing.” Promising to “march on until victory is received,” the 1899 lyric by civil rights activist and poet James Weldon Johnson affirms his enduring perception, regardless of the lived expertise of racial segregation and injustice, within the dream of a nation based upon the rules of freedom and equality.
Neo-soul stylist Jhené Aiko will carry out “America the Stunning.” The track has preceded the Tremendous Bowl anthem since 2009. Its peaceable melodic strains and pastoral, seemingly uncomplicated opening lyrics are most popular by some because the nation’s musical signature.
On this 2021 {photograph}, nation star Mickey Guyton performs onstage throughout a tree-lighting ceremony.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Photos
Lastly, the Texas-born nation singer Mickey Guyton will supply “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Her very presence upends assumptions on either side of at present’s tradition battle. She is a uncommon Black feminine star in a traditionally white conservative style. Her unlikely 2020 hit “Black Like Me” obtained little radio play however turned standard on social media. Embraced by critics, the track made Guyton the first-ever Black girl to obtain a Grammy nomination for greatest nation solo efficiency.
For my part, this yr’s try by the NFL to engineer a feel-good anthem for all is a idiot’s errand. No political gesture at present can please everybody. But soccer would be the one remaining establishment that also brings Individuals collectively throughout the political barricades. It’s annually’s most-watched tv occasion and I, like a lot of its anticipated 100 million different viewers, nonetheless cherish the annual Tremendous Bowl anthem.
For me, the anthem isn’t a worn, unchanging icon however a recent act of citizenship. Each efficiency is a residing expression of neighborhood, one renewed again and again by musical artists who can elevate lyric and melody to satisfy the second and share a collective perception within the nation’s promise. In track anew, that promise once more turns into the accountability of us all.
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Mark Clague obtained a "Public Students" grant from the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities in 2016 to help his anthem analysis.
