We all grew up pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic, for which it stands… you know the rest.
But here in Texas, we go one step further and recite our own pledge, which routinely surprises outsiders.
“Did you know that the Lone Star State has its own Pledge of Allegiance? I didn’t. But it does. Of course it does!” wrote Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker in 2012.
Of course we do.
But it came as a shock to me, too, when my family moved to Texas (from the apparently less Godly state of Louisiana) in the 80s and I learned — at the age of 9 — that I now had twice the number of pledges to recite. Little did I know that generations of Texas kids have had to recite: “Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.” (Not to mention, Texas has its own history class, too!)
I was curious if other people shared my feelings, so I asked on social media about others’ experiences of the Texas pledge. And I quickly learned that I wasn’t alone in both my shock and amusement at our great state’s tradition.
Dallas-based journalist Sasha Richie recalled: “I moved around a lot as a kid but lived most of my life in Texas, and when I told kids in other states that in Texas we had our own state pledge, they looked at me like I had three heads.”
Horror writer D. Williams remembered saying the Texas pledge every day from 1996 until she moved away 12 years later. “It’s only now that you mention it that it occurs to me that that was a weird thing to do,” she said. (If that isn’t the Texas experience in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.)
Teacher Becky Luna said her elementary students recited it “for years” in San Antonio. Ethan Hayes remembered saying it all the way through high school.
Dallas minister Roy Atwood said his Ilinois-native parents were flummoxed by the tradition: “When they found out we had a Texas pledge that we recited every day they were completely dumbfounded,” he said.
And it’s not just schools! Texas resident Brett Spalding said his local Realtor association currently includes it at the beginning of every monthly luncheon. (Editor’s note: Maybe we should be doing this on all our editorial meetings at The Barbed Wire??)
“But they put their hand over their heart, where I distinctly remember that as kids it was hand out, palm up?” Spalding said.
For those readers who aren’t blessed to live in Texas, we’ve had our own pledge for a long time. We established a pledge to our flag in 1933, but it took 70 years before the state legislature mandated that kids in school recite it along with the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.
And over the years, the Texas pledge has also been amended a few times. The initial pledge, adopted in 1933, read: “Honor the Texas Flag of 1836; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible.” But the flag referenced was not the current version but rather David G. Burnet’s “first” national flag: azure blue with a large golden star in the center.
The reference to 1836 was reportedly removed after people reasonably noted that, since Texas didn’t join the Union until 1846, honoring the Texas Flag “of 1836” was kind of weird. Finally, our legislature amended the pledge in 1965, nixing the year. (Nobody tell the 10 new Republicans elected to the statehouse this month who’ve already signed a pledge promising to further the cause of Texas Secession.)
Oh, and about 20 years ago, Republican legislators passed a law to add “one state under God” to the state pledge. Of course. Of course. Lest our detractors fear that we’re a state under someone else, Lt. Gov. Dan “Stand with Christ” Patrick has taken credit for most of these efforts since he took office, adding “under God” to the wall of the Texas Senate, the pledge, and anywhere else that will let him.
And after all these years, the Texas pledge is still going strong, and by “strong” I mean, “confusing new arrivals to the state.”
Importantly, believe it or not, Texas isn’t the only state with its own creepy (or patriotic, depending on who you voted for) pledge. At least a dozen other states also have homages to their flags.
Alaskans put theirs to song: “Eight stars on a field of blue; Alaska’s flag. May it mean to you; The blue of the sea, the evening sky; The mountain lakes, and the flowers nearby.” In Michigan, they shout out both their state and its flag: “Two beautiful peninsulas united by a bridge of steel.” Kinda sounds like Bruce Springsteen wrote it.
Like me, Matt Johnson moved to Texas as a kid. In his case, he came from Georgia.
“We moved to Texas in 5th grade and the first day I sat down after the regular pledge,” he said. “Everyone else, still standing, looked right at me. I hopped back up real quick, super confused. Then I did it every day until graduating high school.”
Same.
Like most things Texas, there’s a bit of an adjustment. Then you can’t imagine things any other way.