We are calling on Congress to make a change to the anthem code to specify that the official anthem of the United States of America is only the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner. There is no place in the anthem of this nation for (from the third verse)
"No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave..."
This change would cost nothing to implement, and it would not require any practical change in performance, but like Germany's choice to make only the third verse of Deutschlandlied their national anthem after the reunification, it would be a symbolic break with the racism of our past, and it would remove a thorn of hypocrisy from our national commitment to equality and freedom for all.