From the June 2, 2020, WBUR by Andrea Shea.
"We all know the words penned by Francis Scott Key more than 200 years ago. As school children, we sang about the dawn's early light and the rockets red glare. We've heard countless celebrities and millions of sports fan belt it out how--even through it all-- our flag was still there.
"Professional football players (and many others) have refused to participate in that tradition as an act of cultural dissent against racial oppression and police-involved killings of unarmed black Americans. Now, after a pain-filled weekend of peaceful-turned-violent protests against enduring racial injustice and deadly inequality, people across the nation are stoking questions about what freedom and patriotism mean in 2020."
But, now, one of the few original newspaper printings of Keys' lyrics are going up for auction online at Christie's Auction House. It opens for bid on June 2 and runs through June 18.
The American Antiquarian Society in Worcester owns two of the three original copies known to exist. They are putting one up for sale and never would have believed this would happen at the same time as a pandemic and wide spread social unrest.
What is at auction is a September 20, 1814, copy of the Baltimore Patriot & Evening Advertiser.
--Brock-Perry
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