The Rugby Football Union announced last week that, in light of recent events, it would review the controversial use of the slave spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which is routinely sung by fans of the England rugby union team.
“The Duke is supportive of the comments the RFU made this week regarding the review, and he will follow the lead of the RFU on this matter,” a spokesperson for the prince told HuffPost, referring to Harry by his title, the Duke of Sussex.
The union added: “The Swing Low, Sweet Chariot song has long been part of the culture of rugby and is sung by many who have no awareness of its origins or sensitivities.
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is a Black spiritual that was sung both on the Underground Railroad and at Black funerals, Josephine Wright, a professor of music history and literature and Africana studies at the College of Wooster, told The New York Times in 2017.
The use of the song by white rugby fans is “a slap in the face to the history of slavery,” Cornell William Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and former CEO and president of the NAACP, told CNN.
