Pledge of Allegiance history

Original Pledge of Allegiance - October 11, 1892

I pledge allegiance to my Flag,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

June 14, 1924

The words "the flag of the United States of America" are substituted for "my Flag."

Originally, the pledge was said with the right hand in the so-called "Bellamy Salute," with the right hand resting first outward from the chest, then the arm extending out from the body. Once Hitler came to power in Europe, some Americans were concerned that this position of the arm and hand resembled the Nazi or Fascist salute. In 1942 Congress also established the current practice of rendering the pledge with the right hand over the heart.

June 14, 1954

A New phrase was added during the national paranoia of the McCarthy era. Worried that orations used by "godless communists" sound similar to the Pledge of Allegiance, religious leaders lobbied lawmakers to insert the words "under God" into the pledge. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, fearing an atomic war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, joined the chorus to put God into the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

June 27, 2002

A federal appeals court ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is an unconstitutional "endorsement of religion" because of the addition of the phrase "under God" in 1954 by Congress.

A three-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case to a lower court. If allowed to stand, the ruling would apply to schools in the nine states covered by the 9th Circuit.