Land of the Free

"Land of the Free" is the national anthem of Belize. The words were written by Samuel Alfred Haynes and the music by Selwyn Walford Young in 1963. It was officially adopted in 1981. History and criticism Samuel Haynes Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Haynes enlisted in the British West Indies Regiment. After being discharged at the end of the war, Hayne returned to Belize where he joined various workers' movements in Belize and played a vital role in a riot by ex-servicemen against racial discrimination which occurred 22 July. After the riot was suppressed by the colonial government, Haynes began organising the Belizean branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and facilitated the visit of its leader, Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey to Belize. Garvey recruited Haynes to work with him in the United States, a move that rendered the UNIA chapted in Belize leaderless for much of the 1920s and that indirectly contributed to the Isaiah Emmanuel Morter controversy. Haynes most likely wrote the anthem as an answer to colonialism's stifling of Belizeans' identity. The lofty language and uplifting lyrics referenced Belize's former status as a slave society indebted to profits from forestry, linking it to the end of Belize's colonial period, a process that culminated on 21 September 1981. The song was originally titled "Land of the Gods", a salute to the proliferation of organised religion in Belize. Exalting by the PUP With the arrival of the nationalist movement led by the People's United Party, the search was on for new symbols of Belizean identity. The PUP had defied the colonial order by singing "God Bless America" instead of the royal anthem "God Save the King" (or Queen). At independence, the ruling PUP named "Land of the Free" Belize's official anthem and played it at emotional independence ceremonies on 21 September. Most Belizeans agreed with the choice but lamented that it had not been put to a vote of Belizean residents.