The BBC on Monday rejected the “unjustified personal attacks’’ on Stasevska and said the changes in the program were made by the corporation after consulting all the artists involved.

“The Proms will reinvent the Last Night in this extraordinary year so that it respects the traditions and spirit of the event whilst adapting to very different circumstances at this moment in time,″ the BBC said.

The Proms is an annual series of summer concerts that was created in 1895 and has been organized by the BBC since 1927. The final night has traditionally featured a triumphant emotional singalong of patriotic songs like “Rule, Britannia!” It’s a flag-waving fixture on the calendar and is seen as an expression of national pride in Britain.

“Rule, Britannia!” was first performed in 1740 when Britain, backed by the might of the Royal Navy, was building an empire that stretched from India to South Africa and Jamaica. While the empire is long gone, it remains embedded in the song’s lyrics, which suggest Britain was created at “Heaven’s command’’ and end with the rousing chorus:

“Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves! Britons never, never, never will be slaves.”

Kehinde Andrews, a professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, said the line represented racist propaganda at a time when Britain was the world’s leading slave-trading nation.

“If dropping racist propaganda from taxpayer-funded TV is controversial, then there is no hope for the serious work that needs to be done to address racism,’’ Andrews tweeted.