CA NAACP Wants National Anthem Gone

CALIFORNIA -- Calling "The Star-Spangled Banner" a racist song, the California chapter of the NAACP is calling on lawmakers to remove it as the national anthem.

During an October conference, the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People approved a resolution "urging Congress to rescind 'one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon' as the national anthem," according to The Sacramento Bee.

The group also approved a resolution announcing its support for Colin Kaepernick, an ex-San Francisco 49ers quarterback who knelt during the national anthem at games in protest of police brutality. Kapernick, who has yet to be signed on by any other NFL team, prompted a movement across the franchise with dozens of other players now kneeling as the song is played prior to games.

Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP, told The Sacramento Bee that lawmakers should find “another song that disenfranchises part of the American population" and that the kneeling controversy could go away if the song is removed as the national anthem.

Huffman told The San Francisco Chronicle the group's request isn't meant to be an insult to the flag.

"We're protesting this racist song that has caused so much controversy in America, and we're just trying to get it removed. So, whatever comes out in the future as a national anthem, we can all stand proudly and sing it," Huffman told the Chronicle.

"The Star-Spangled Banner," which was made the national anthem in 1931, was written by lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key in 1814 after he witnessed British ships bombarded the Baltimore Harbor.

A stanza from the song, which was removed from the modern-day version often heard today, blasted the former slaved who worked for the British army, according to TheRoot.com column.

The lyrics include:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a Country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

"In other words, Key was saying that the blood of all the former slaves and 'hirelings' on the battlefield will wash away the pollution of the British invaders," TheRoot.com article reads. "With Key still bitter that some black soldiers got the best of him a few weeks earlier, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is as much a patriotic song as it is a diss track to black people who had the audacity to fight for their freedom. Perhaps that’s why it took almost 100 years for the song to become the national anthem."

The California NAACP is also calling on a censure of President Donald Trump for his criticism of NFL players who do not stand during the anthem.

Watch Now: California NAACP Wants National Anthem Gone

--San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Eli Harold (58) kneel during the playing of the National anthem, Dec. 18, 2016, in Atlanta. (John Bazemore/Associated Press)