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For years, baseball's New York Yankees and hockey's Philadelphia Flyers have played singer Kate Smith's famous rendition of "God Bless America" during games.

But those long-time traditions have been halted over allegations that other songs performed by Smith -- one of America's biggest singing stars during the early 20th century -- are racist.

Smith is closely tied to the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers because she performed "God Bless America" before Flyers games in the 1970s. A year after her 1986 death, the team erected a statue in her honor outside of its arena.

Now the team won't play her version of the song during games and will cover up her statue.

We have recently become aware that several songs performed by Kate Smith contain offensive lyrics that do not reflect our values as an organization," the Flyers said in a statement to CNN.

The Yankees said the team also was no longer playing Smith's iconic 1939 version of the song. It had been a fixture at games since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the team said. It got pulled three games into the season on April 1.

One of them is her 1931 rendition of "That's Why Darkies Were Born," which has lyrics that read:
"Someone had to pick the cotton,
Someone had to plant the corn,
Someone had to slave and be able to sing,
That's why darkies were born"
The other is her 1933 recording, "Pickaninny Heaven," which asks "colored children" living in an orphanage to dream about a magical place "great big watermelons."
In a statement, the Yankees said they had "been made aware of a recording that had been previously unknown to us and decided to immediately and carefully review this new information. The Yankees take social, racial and cultural insensitivities very seriously. And while no final conclusions have been made, we are erring on the side of sensitivity."
Her version of the song has been replaced with other versions.

Sports teams dump Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' because of her racist songs


The first song is seemingly outwardly racist but it should be noted it was recorded by noted civil rights activist Paul Robeson. The second one is based on stereotypes and none of them is “God Bless America” of which her version is arguably the most stirring. Kate Smith’s rendition of the song is part of hockey history, the Flyers won most games when the song was played as well as two Stanley Cups. If we are going to ban every song made by bigots or have done bad things we need to ban most songs.

The Flyers and Yankees are virtue signaling.

First she was covered up. Now, apparently she is gone.

The bronze statue of the late singer Kate Smith has been removed from outside Xfinity Live! as the Flyers looked into racist lyrics she sang.

“While Kate Smith’s performance of “God Bless America” cannot be erased from its place in Flyers history, that rendition will no longer be featured in our game presentations. And to ensure the sentiments stirred this week are no longer echoed, earlier today we completed the removal of the Kate Smith statue from its former location outside of our arena,” the Flyers organization said in a statement issued Sunday afternoon.

The statement included the following quote from Flyers President Paul Holmgren: “The NHL principle ‘Hockey is for Everyone’ is at the heart of everything the Flyers stand for. As a result, we cannot stand idle while material from another era gets in the way of who we are today.”

Since 1969, the Flyers had played Smith’s version of Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America” before must-win games, where it proved to be just the inspiration needed. According to the Flyers, the team went 101-31-5 in games where Smith’s version of the song aired, including 3-1-0 when Smith sang the song live at the Spectrum beginning with the Flyers’ 1973 home opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Smith was born in Virginia in 1907. In 1931, she recorded “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown, which includes the lyric, “Someone had to pick the cotton.” There is some question about whether there was a satirical nature to the song, which was also recorded by the African American artist and civil rights advocate Paul Robeson, and was referenced in the 1933 Marx Brothers film Duck Soup.

In the 1933 film Hello, Everybody!, Smith sang “Pickaninny Heaven,” which directs “colored children” living in an orphanage to fantasize about a place with “great big watermelons.”

The Flyers erected the statue of Smith, who died in 1986 at age 79, outside the Spectrum in 1987. After the Spectrum was demolished in 2011, Smith’s statue was moved to the parking lot of Xfinity Live!

Smith’s relatives on Saturday evening told USA Today that the family is “heartbroken” by the controversy.

Local Black Lives Matter activist Asa Khalif last week welcomed the move to cover up the statue and called for the Flyers to remove it.

What’s caused the ruckus are songs she recorded in the 1930s that today are considered racist. The PC police have struck again.

Being the man responsible for first playing the wonderfully patriotic song at a Flyers game instead of the national anthem 50 years ago, I heard my phone explode as reaction on social media went viral and, for the most part, virulent.

Comments ranged from friends and fans vowing to turn in their tickets, to boycotting sponsors, to lamenting “a gutless decision” – as well as “It’s about time!”

As vice president of the Flyers, I first played the song on Dec. 11, 1969, to shake up the growing number of Flyers fans displaying a lack of respect during the pregame ritual of the national anthem at the Spectrum.

The nation was bitterly divided over the Vietnam War and racial unrest was tearing at our collective fabric. Many fans at Flyers games were apathetic or rude when it was played: sitting, chatting, eating, rarely removing hats, some even sitting having a smoke.

I wasn’t sure what song to use as a replacement but knew I had the right one when I found Kate’s vinyl record at a used-records store on South Street.

That fateful night at the Spectrum, the young, inexperienced Flyers were hosting the powerful Toronto Maple Leafs.

I gave the word to the sound booth and soon heard: “Ladies and gentlemen, would you please rise and join in singing Kate Smith’s recording of ‘God Bless America'?"

There was an eerie hush, followed by a growing buzz and some derisive shouts. By the time Kate’s amazing voice hit that impossible high ending note, the crowd was astir.
Ed Snider, the Flyers’ rather intense owner, was shocked. He bolted from his seat, stormed over to me and screamed in my face what he thought of my brainstorm.
“I told you I was thinking about doing it,” I said.

“But I didn’t think you were crazy enough to actually do it!” he shouted.

By the end of a crackling game in which the Flyers hustled, hit, and won, 6-3, fans streaming up the aisle told Snider how much they loved the song.

Ed came over to me sporting a warm, disbelieving smile and shaking his head.

“I don’t know how you did it, you crazy SOB,” he said, hugging me.
The next day The Inquirer snickered that since the Flyers had won one in a row, “they might want to keep her in the lineup!”

Thus was born the magical love affair between Kate Smith and “her boys,” a bunch of colorful, toothless Broad Street Bullies. Kate Smith quickly became a cherished member of the Flyers family and a Philly icon.

I played “God Bless America” only 21 times over the first three seasons – solely for a key game -- and it worked like a charm. The Flyers won 19 of those games, tied one, and lost only once, a far cry from their dismal losing records in those days. (By the end of the 2018-19 season, her record stood at a sparkling 101-31-5.)

It would be four long years before we could get Kate Smith to sing live before an adoring crowd at a Flyers game at the Spectrum.

Her New York agent flatly dismissed our many invitations.

“Miss Smith sings for presidents and kings, the pope,” he sniffed, “not for a hockey game.”
But Kate had an elderly uncle living in West Philly and he began sending her clippings of the Flyers’ good fortune. That’s all it took and she soon made the first of her four live game appearances at the opening game on Oct. 2, 1973, where the Flyers shut out Toronto, 2-0.

Maple Leafs goalie Doug Favell, a former Flyer, said when they rolled out the red carpet, “I knew we were cooked!”

If all good things must come to an end, I guess this was as good a magical run as any.
She thrilled and inspired millions around the globe as “America’s Songbird” and the signature song, given to Kate Smith by Irving Berlin with the stipulation that all royalties benefit the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, continues to raise millions of dollars for their cause.

How do I feel about her demise?
I’m disappointed, especially in the heavy-handed way she was dumped.
Yanking the song and clumsily covering the statue was harsh.

I’ve been asked what Snider, who had her statue erected and who served as a pallbearer at her 1986 funeral, would’ve done.

That’s hard to answer, but I do know he had a damn strong backbone.

Just as there is a vastly different culture today in America than 80 years ago, there is a much different culture at the Flyers and their parent, Comcast-Spectator.

Ed Snider and Kate Smith are gone. May they both rest in peace.

Lou Scheinfeld is a former executive with the Flyers, 76ers, and Eagles and was a close friend of Ed Snider for more than 50 years. He currently is president of The Museum of Sports, a national destination proposed for the Philadelphia Sports Complex.

Wildwood Mayor Ernie Troiano said his town would continue to play Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America” every morning along the boardwalk throughout the summer.

“It’s an Irving Berlin patriotic song that has nothing to do with anything other than America,” Troiano told WPHT’s Dom Giordano on Monday. “I can assure you that my conversation with the mayor of North Wildwood, Patrick Rosenello, is, we have no intentions of removing it.”

“That’s not a statement that we don’t understand what’s going on, and we’re ignorant to the history and all that. … We understand the history,” Troiano added. “But the world’s gotten so politically correct and so afraid that they’re going to offend somebody. … The song is greater than anything. So you know what? It’ll continue to play in Wildwood.”

Smith alone raised $600 million in war bonds; during one February 1944 radio special, she raised a record $110 million in pledges. Between shows, she traveled nearly 520,000 miles to entertain American troops.

On Nov. 10, 1938, one day after Kristallnacht and the eve of Armistice Day, the radio and recording star Kate Smith, the “Songbird of the South,” spoke the following words on her weekly CBS show: “And now it’s going to be my very great privilege to sing for you a song that’s never been sung before by anybody … It’s something more than a song — I feel it’s one of the most beautiful compositions ever written, a song that will never die. The author, Mr. Irving Berlin. The title, ‘God Bless America.’”

The reaction was swift and powerful: America loved “God Bless America.”

Yet almost as soon as “God Bless America” was introduced, some of Berlin’s fellow citizens began reviling him for his presumption, as an immigrant and a Jew, in having written it at all. Isolationist America-Firsters, defending “The Star-Spangled Banner,” shouted down efforts to sing “God Bless America” at public gatherings. Though Berlin donated all royalties from the song to the Boy and Girl Scouts, many people accused him, in baldly anti-Semitic terms, of trying to profit from it. Jewish-conspiracy theories sprang up around the tune. The head of the pro-Nazi Protestant War Veterans of the United States wrote a letter to the director of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., accusing Berlin of paying “your organization $15,000 dollars to put over a (Jew) New National Anthem.”

First I've seen of the shirt:



It's not wrong what it says, is it? And Islamophobia is a word that should be rejected, with anyone using it against you treated with utter disdain. It's just a stick to beat people into silence with so they don't talk about such uncomfortable truths as are written on that t-shirt.

The man has some set of balls to be wearing that. And just think about that and the difference there would be in your assessment of the size of his balls if it was a different religion he was criticizing on the t-shirt.

A lot of things on that shirt are hardly specific to Islam...and out of curiosity have you read the bible? If we had biblical laws in this country women wouldn't be much better off than if we had sharia law. Why can't someone simply oppose the things listed on the shirt without declaring themselves an Islamophobe?

Depends on the Christian. Some feel new testament overrules the old which with them we might be better off than sharia law. Then you have the literalists... who could arguably make things worse.

Sports teams dump Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' because of her racist songs


The first song is seemingly outwardly racist but it should be noted it was recorded by noted civil rights activist Paul Robeson. The second one is based on stereotypes and none of them is “God Bless America” of which her version is arguably the most stirring. Kate Smith’s rendition of the song is part of hockey history, the Flyers won most games when the song was played as well as two Stanley Cups. If we are going to ban every song made by bigots or have done bad things we need to ban most songs.

The Flyers and Yankees are virtue signaling.

I watched this when it happened, very memorable.



Kids looked bored or pissed.


Just reading the lyrics the song looks racist as hell. Listening to the song I have a different view the tone is of pain. I can see why Paul Robeson recorded it.

Members of the Lake Placid Rotary Club had a lot to talk about this past weekend as Kate Smith's reputation was challenged over racist lyrics in a couple of songs she recorded in the early 1930s.

The question was posed, "Should the Rotary Club keep the name of its Kate Smith Scholarship Award?" The answer?

"For this year, we're just going to call it the Lake Placid Rotary Club Music Award and then go from there," said Rotary Club President Susan Friedmann

Since 1994, the Rotary Club has been giving out the scholarship to a deserving junior or senior at the Lake Placid High School interested in studying any form of music. It's traditionally been handed out around Smith's birthday, May 1. In 2018, then-junior Emma Bishop received a cash prize of $1,000 to be used for college applications or other college-related expenses.

"The last thing we want to do is to offend anybody, so we're actually in discussion as to what to do with regard to the name," Friedmann said. "We're not a political organization. ... We just want to stay safe and be part of the community and be well serving. Our motto is 'Service above self,' and that's what we want to do. We don't want to take any stands on anything."

Though originally from Virginia and Washington, D.C., Smith spent time in Lake Placid for about 35 years, including many summers at her Camp Sunshine on Buck Island in the village's namesake lake, where she turned the second floor of her boathouse into a recording studio. There is a memorial for her in the entry of St. Agnes Church, where she was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic in 1965, and to which she left a large bequest. She was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame. The Arts & Music Gallery at the Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society features her records, sheet music and photos. She raised money for the Placid Memorial Hospital, the Uihlein Mercy Center and multiple youth programs. Her signature song, "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain," is seen as a love letter to the Adirondacks. And finally, she was buried in a mausoleum at the St. Agnes Cemetery after she died in 1986 at the age of 79.

Kate Smith’s statue has been wrapped up and carted off from outside the Wells Fargo Center. Reaction to racist lyrics in two songs she sang — “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” recorded in 1931, and “Pickaninny Heaven,” from a 1933 movie — silenced her rendition of “God Bless America” at Flyers and New York Yankees games.

Now it’s time to complicate the record further and consider Smith as a champion of racial tolerance.

In a long-forgotten radio speech in January 1945, “the First Lady of Radio” gave an impassioned speech attacking bigotry and racism, calling them “the diseases that eat away the fibers of peace.” As millions listened, she called for every church and family to commit to tolerance and understanding.

Which Smith is the real Smith? The purveyor of racial stereotypes or the crusader for social harmony?

“Are the songs racist? Of course they are,” says Susan J. Douglas, a professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan and author of Listening: Radio and the American Imagination. But in matters like this, where a moment from the past ignites a current debate, context matters, she says: "People don’t think about the historical context, and they don’t think about nuance at all. Without wishing to defend or advocate for Kate Smith, I’d point out that there’s a huge difference between the early 1930s and 1945.”

It’s hard to overstate Smith’s standing in her day. At her height, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America. She had a string of million-selling records and a series of national radio programs throughout the 1930s. As of January 1945, when she gave the speech on the CBS show We, the People, she had two weekly shows.

In this particular speech, she first told the story of a Christian family in Belgium that hid three Jews from the Nazis. And then this, as recounted in the May 1945 issue of the popular radio magazine Tune In:

"It seems to me that faith in the decency of human beings is what we must have more of, if there is to be a future for all of us in this world. We read in the papers every day about conferences on the best way to keep the peace. Well, I’m not an expert on foreign affairs — and I don’t pretend to know all the complex things that will have to be done for a lasting peace. But I am a human being — and I do know something about people. I know that our statesmen — our armies of occupation — our military strategists — may all fail if the peoples of the world don’t learn to understand and tolerate each other.
Race hatreds — social prejudices — religious bigotry — they are the diseases that eat away the fibers of peace. Unless they are exterminated it’s inevitable that we will have another war. And where are they going to be exterminated? At a conference table in Geneva? Not by a long shot. In your own city — your church — your children’s school — perhaps in your own home.
You and I must do it – every father and mother in the world, every teacher, everyone who can rightfully call himself a human being. Yes, it seems to me that the one thing the peoples of the world have got to learn if we are ever to have a lasting peace, is — tolerance. Of what use will it be if the lights go on again all over the world — if they don’t go on … in our hearts."

People heard it, all right. The sponsors of We, the People said they received more than 20,000 requests for reprints. Newspapers across the land reprinted passages.

Smith spoke as the Battle of the Bulge was raging; the anti-Nazi message is loud and clear. So is the fear that social division might weaken the nation in time of war. But the speech reaches further, to include “race hatreds” and “social prejudices.” The change she seeks is not by treaty but by a sincere change of hearts and minds.

Some might find it hard to square such full-throated social crusading with the two 1930s songs. “Pickaninny Heaven” — pickaninny is an offensive and, condescending term for a black child — imagines the afterworld as a place where “Great big watermelons roll around and get in your way.” “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” tells us that “Someone had to pick the cotton, / Someone had to pick the corn, / Someone had to slave and be able to sing, / That’s why darkies were born.”

Douglas acknowledges the toxic lyrics, but says that by the mid-1940s, things had started changing. “The music Smith sang in the early 1930s derived from 1920s culture,” Douglas says, “and the 1920s was a very race-hostile environment, with a big resurgence of the KKK and worsening conditions for many blacks. But by 1945, you have increasing self-awareness in the country about our social divisions, increasing discussion, for example, about integrating the military,” which President Harry S. Truman eventually did in 1948. “Membership in the NAACP was rising, and you have black figures such as boxer Joe Louis, who became a national hero for defeating Hitler’s favorite boxer.”

As popular culture historian J. Fred McDonald writes in his online history of radio, Don’t Touch That Dial, throughout the 1940s a groundswell of public discussion denounced the mistreatment and misrepresentation of African Americans, including derogatory stereotypes in the media. Smith’s speech sits squarely in that movement.

Douglas wonders: “Why can’t it be the case that Kate Smith did sing those songs and yet had moved by 1945 to a new position, because of what was changing all around her?”

During their weekly meeting Thursday morning, April 25, at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel, members of the Rotary Club of Lake Placid decided to keep Kate Smith's name attached to their annual high school music scholarship.

"We are keeping things the way they are," club President Susan Friedmann said by phone Thursday evening.

On Monday, Friedmann told the Lake Placid News that members of the club had a lot of discussions this past weekend about keeping the name of the award intact as the late singer's reputation was being challenged over racist lyrics in a couple of songs she recorded in the early 1930s.