What is the History of the Pledge of Allegiance?
The convoluted history of the Pledge of Allegiance reveals a great deal about the nation’s fears, strengths and prejudices. Twenty-six states now require the pledge of allegiance to be recited in public schools. Some states require schools to reflect on the history and meaning of that pledge. Reflection would be instructive, since the story of the pledge reveals the fears and strengths of this nation. At the end of the 19th century, millions of immigrants poured into a country beset with social unrest. Many people believed America needed some symbol to tie the nation’s peoples together. The first widely used pledge of allegiance was written by a Colonel Balch of New York. It was a simple pledge of fealty and devotion: “I give my heart and my hand to my country — one country, one language, one flag.” In 1892, Francis Bellamy, an ordained Baptist minister who had been booted out of his Boston church because of his fiery socialist sermons, composed a pledge that expressed loyalty not onl
