In these times more people need to know about this song. Its pathetic how so many people have no idea there's a black national anthem.
I moved from the Houston metro to Decatur, Ga when I was 12. I real life got roasted by my class because I could read out loud extremely well and I made the mistake of wearing a sweater in November
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I still love them nikkas but they really fried me for a week.
I would never insult them because they were good people. I’m sure they went on to grow into better people. I told that story not to say that they embrace ignorance but to say that there’s a certain insecurity in our communities that stifles our wanting to learn more or try stuff we don’t regular see.
I haven’t heard the Negro national anthem outside of a well mixed school in far out west Houston and the MLK center in Atlanta. I don’t know who to blame but the only one’s who forced us to learn it was my black, el Salvadoran, Japanese teachers (and one white teacher who felt so guilt on Februaries that she cried). It was a requirement to pass 3rd grade. I would also never say that my teachers in Decatur weren’t pro-black. They taught us all kinds of stuff about ourselves, outside of curriculum. Stuff I would have never learned at that elementary/middle school in Texas. Mostly on what to look out for and how to deal with potential racism. I’m curious now why they never spent time on the song. I will admit that the school’s infrastructure wasn’t the greatest. It was 1998 and my art teacher got away with smoking in class (it was in the schools basement) and she spent half the class complaining about Georgia and wanted to move back to NYC.