Alabama Senate passes bill mandating weekly national anthem in schools

The Alabama Senate passed a bill Thursday that would require K-12 public schools to broadcast or perform the first stanza of  “The Star-Spangled Banner” at least once a week during school hours.

SB 13, sponsored by Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, is a constitutional amendment that would need approval from state voters if passed by both chambers. The bill passed the Senate  25-6 and moved to the House for consideration.

“It’s important that all our children will have the opportunity to hear the national anthem at least once a week,” Allen said on the Senate floor.

Allen, reading letters from students he said support the requirement, spoke at length as Senate Republicans were filibustering their own bills to keep Democrats from speaking. Democratic senators in a committee hearing in early April said that it would require students to be exposed to parts of the song, particularly the third stanza, which critics have said is an attack on Black Americans who escaped slavery by joining the British Army.

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said after the bill’s passage that it potentially violates children’s constitutional rights, particularly free speech.

“When you start talking about fundamental rights. I think that’s going to be something that’s going to be challenged in courts too, in terms of whether or not — the constitutionality of — can you make kids listen to that on a daily basis, who may not want to and refuse,” Singleton said.

He also opposed making it a constitutional amendment, saying it would be “a forever permanent piece of law,” which he said was unnecessary. He said lawmakers should instead be focused on creating jobs and improving education in the state.

“I, too, am America, but do I have to love something that talks about me and the history of my slavery, that degrades me and my people? No, I don’t. So why make children have to sing that in school?” Singleton asked.