I learned the Pledge of Allegiance before the words under God were inserted into it. We did not know anything was missing. Even without God, it was a Norman Rockwell scene: little white boys and girls with their hands over their hearts, facing a flag in the corner of a classroom in northwest Washington, D.C., struggling with the tough five syllables of "indivisible," while children across the racial divide in all-black schools in northeast and southwest Washington ghettos recited the same patriotic words to begin the school day. The black children grasped the details of the affirmation as little as we...
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