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7/24/2025, 5:37:41 PM
>Since 2001, the New York Yankees had a tradition of playing Kate Smith's landmark 1939 rendition of "God Bless America" at home games. In 2019 the baseball franchise decided to discontinue use of the song over controversy surrounding two 1931 recordings by Smith titled "That's Why God Created Darkies" and "Pickanniny Heaven." The portly Virginia native, who died in 1986, was one of the biggest singers in America during the 1930s and World War II before seeing her popularity decline postwar. Some of Smith's relatives flatly denied that she had been a racist. Aside from the Yankees dropping the use of "God Bless America", the city of Philadelphia also removed a statue of Smith that stood outside the Flyers' home arena at Fargo Center.[9]
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