THE PUBLIC MIND: A GREAT MANY AMERICANS OF ALL COLORS DIED TO PRESERVE IDEAS OF NATIONAL ANTHEM

To the Editor:

I have been reading with much interest in recent days about the disagreement at the SEMO basketball game over the playing of a supposedly black national anthem and folks being asked to stand to pay respect to Martin Luther King during the playing of this song.

As for standing out of respect for Dr. King, I would certainly do so to honor a man who for so long fought for the moral principles on which our country was founded upon. As for a black national anthem, I could stand for that if it were to honor another country, but since we have an anthem that is for all American people, I don't think that that would be appropriate.

I believe that too many Americans died fighting for that anthem and the American flag for which that song was written. Black Americans, beginning with the American Revolution, have poured out their blood in defense of their country and the flag that represents it. Although our national anthem wasn't written until 1861, black people were giving their lives in defense of this country long before.

Crispus Attuks was the first man killed in the Boston Massacre of 1776 while leading a group American Revolutionists. I believe it was a man named Tom Poor who shot a British general right through the heart and killed him just as the general raised his arms and proclaimed victory for the British. Both of these gallant men were black, as were the approximately 5,000 black men who volunteered for service in that war. We have to be aware of the sacrifices that blacks have made in all wars, including the War of 1812, the Civil War, the war with Cuba, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War.

Last year it was fashionable, especially among younger people, to participate in Japanese bashing even when the people turned out to be not Japanese but American people of Japanese descent. I recall as a boy wanting to be a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team which had the typically American battle slogan "Go for Broke." The thing about this highly decorated American Unit that fought its way across Europe was that they were all Japanese American volunteers who, even after their relatives were being rounded up and put into internment camps, still had enough love for this country to fight and die for it.

I apologize to the American people of Japanese descent for putting the word Japanese first and then American. I will not do so again nor will I put Afro before American when referring to black people. I do this not out of disrespect for these people but out of a firm conviction that these are first and foremost Americans and deserve the respect that is due all Americans who live in this country, including the Chinese who came to this country long ago and helped build our railroads: Puerto Ricans, Italians, Germans, Russians and the list goes on and on. I think of the original natives of this country, the American Indian and one in particular a young marine who helped raise the flag on Mt. Surabachi, on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II; his name was Ira Hays.

I think of a young black fighter pilot during World War II by the name of Capt. Wendell Pruitt, after whom the Pruitt-Igoe apartment complex in St. Louis was named.

The national anthem was written during a battle that was not fought just over slavery but for the ideals and principles on which this great country was founded. I shudder to think what might have been if Ft. Sumter had fallen in the middle of the night and our Union would have gone on to be dissolved.

To the young people who would not stand for the playing of our national anthem at the SEMO basketball game a while back, this is your priv~ilege, because you live in a country where men of all color have given their lives to give you these freedoms. I am also sure that their are many Veterans who would love to stand for the playing of the national anthem but can't because they have left their legs on some foreign battlefield.

To them, whether they be bla~k or white or red or yellow I give my deepest respect and admiration.

William E. Ringpfiel

Cape Girardeau