In 2020, the National Football League began instituting the performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” commonly referred to as the Black National Anthem, before its football contests. That tradition will continue before the Feb. 9 kickoff of Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans.
Although much has been made of the appearance of President Donald Trump at this year’s Super Bowl, according to The Oklahoman, the league has made no plans to alter its newest tradition or its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to suit the whims of the Trump administration.
At this year’s game, R&B singer and New Orleans native Ledisi will perform the anthem, which originated as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900.
Later, his brother, John Rosamund Johnson, set it to music. It was first performed publicly in February to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.
Later, the song was officially adopted by the NAACP. Because it invokes God and promises liberty, it became a rallying cry for the organization during the civil rights protests of the 1950s and 1960s.
According to Newsweek, Trump’s appearance at the game marks the first appearance at the game by a sitting president, and of course, the song’s presence at last year’s Super Bowl upset MAGA Republicans and other right-wing figures.
According to NBC News, some have already voiced their protests of the song on social media. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said in a post that the NFL’s choice to perform the Black National Anthem is divisive.
“America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness,” Boebert complained in her post in 2023.
However, Gerald Early, a pop culture essayist who teaches in the African and African American studies department of St. Louis’ Washington University, indicated to the outlet that the song is an affirmation of Black Americans’ perseverance and inspiration.
“The performance of the song should be framed to the public not as a protest song but as a song of Black affirmation, perseverance and inspiration,” Early said. “It is unfortunate that the song’s performance has become a culture war issue. Feelings might be running a bit more strongly on this issue since Donald Trump won the election decisively and he has always been opposed to this sort of thing.”
The culture war Early references is pushed by figures like Trump and Boebert, who often attempt to position sports as a sanctuary from political issues while leaning into sports’ political aspect.
To that end, sports are inherently political, as Dr. Harry Edwards, the creator of the sports sociology field and the architect of the 1968 Olympics protest carried out by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, often points out.
“Colin Kaepernick took a stand. And it was made crystal clear that there is a huge price to pay,” Edwards told CBS News.
In 2017, amid Kaepernick’s protests against police brutality, which Edwards provided some counsel to the quarterback on, Trump infamously referred to Kaepernick without saying his name, using inflammatory and derogatory language.
“Wouldn’t you
love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b*tch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!” Trump said during a 2017 speech in Alabama.Trump has yet to address the song being performed at the Super Bowl.
RELATED CONTENT: Critics Speak Out Against Tasha Cobbs Leonard’s Black National Anthem Performance