The Battle Hymn of...Michigan?

Most schoolkids in Michigan know that Michigan, My Michigan is our unofficial state song. It's sung to the tune of O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, which also happens to be the tune for Maryland, My Maryland and Florida, My Florida (OK, Maryland was first; Michigan and Florida are copycats). The first verse, which is the only one anyone remembers, goes thus:

Home of my heart, I sing of thee!
Michigan, My Michigan,
Thy lake-bound shores I long to see,
Michigan, my Michigan.
From Saginaw’s tall whispering pines
To Lake Superior’s farthest mines,
Fair in the light of memory shines
Michigan, my Michigan.

The original version, written by Winifred Lee Brent in 1862, drones on for nine more tedious verses. In them Brent, the wife of a Civil War surgeon, speaks of the glorious, if bloody, victories won by Michigan's troops over the enemies of freedom and equality. Truth be told, Maryland, My Maryland was written a year earlier and shamelessly glorified the Confederate cause, so Brent probably penned her song to even the "score" (pardon the pun).

With our state song so poignantly proclaiming our willingness to shed blood for such a righteous cause, you would expect modern-day Michigan to be a mecca of racial harmony. Instead, white flight over the past 40 years has made Detroit the country's blackest major city and rendered Southeast Michigan the most racially-segregated metropolitan area in the nation.

Maybe we need a final verse that reflects current reality:

We whipped the Rebs' butts all day long,
Michigan, My Michigan.
'Cause we were right and they were wrong.
Michigan, My Michigan.
We put an end to slavery,
But not to our own bigotry.
We've moved out of Detroit city
In Michigan, My Michigan.