Black Pledge of Allegiance 'not about separatism'

Protests over posting on district's website don't faze schools chief

01/25/2002

By ARNOLD HAMILTON / The Dallas Morning News

BLACK PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE We pledge allegiance of the red, black and green Our flag, the symbol of our eternal struggle, and to the land we must obtain. One nation of Black people, with one God for us all, Totally united in the struggle for Black Love, Black Freedom, and Black determination.

OKLAHOMA CITY – On the eve of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Dr. Gloria Griffin's e-mailbox suddenly filled with messages.

They weren't reminders of events celebrating the life of the civil rights icon. And they weren't notes applauding her efforts as superintendent of the overwhelmingly black Millwood Public Schools.

The e-mails instead carried accusations that her school promotes black separatism and that its students are unpatriotic – because the school posted the so-called Black Pledge of Allegiance on its website.

"I have stopped opening the e-mails, quite frankly," Dr. Griffin said. "I choose the time I want to be abused.

"Those who know us here in Millwood know this is not what we are about. We are not about racism. We are not about separatism."

The seven-line pledge affirms allegiance to "One nation of Black people ... united in the struggle for Black Love, Black Freedom and Black determination."

Dr. Griffin said the majority of the 200 or so e-mails were from outside Oklahoma. She said none came from parents or patrons in the school district, although there have been phone calls of support.

The pledge had been on the website for months, but it wasn't until the day before King's Jan. 15 birthday that she began getting the e-mails.

"The thing that disturbs me the most is whether or not these are persons who want to incite some kind of division within the United States and we just became a good way of getting it done," she said. "We may very well have become a pawn in somebody else's move."

One of the e-mails complains: "It is a shame that this pledge to black separatism is allowed in your school system."

Another says: "It is one of the most racist pieces of propaganda I have read in many years. In a nation which encourages equality, I am surprised to see such stark racial division being taught by a public school."

The e-mails, still arriving (a dozen Thursday), ignited a flurry of local news coverage as district officials sought to explain their understanding of the pledge and its history on school documents.

This week the district is formally surveying parents, students, faculty and staff about whether the pledge should remain in the student handbook or on the website.

Dr. Griffin said she sees no reason to remove the pledge, which appears on the site just after the school song and the Pledge of Allegiance and just before the words to "Lift Every Voice and Sing." But she also said the site needs revamping to ensure that the Black Pledge of Allegiance appears "in context."

"When an African-American first looks at it, you don't see that it might offend someone," she said. "It has caused us to look at ourselves."

Millwood is a nine-square-mile public school district in north Oklahoma City. At its campus near the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, it offers classes from pre-kindergarten through high school. Nearly 99 percent of its 1,000-plus students are black. School officials said they are uncertain who wrote the black pledge of allegiance, though some think it might have been written in the 1930s by Marcus Garvey, one of the early 20th century's most influential black leaders.

Dr. Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political science professor and authority on African-American history, said it is more likely that the pledge was written in the 1960s, when the word black became a "favorite appellation" amid the civil rights movement.

Dr. Walters also said he thinks it is incorrect to characterize the pledge as a call for separatism.

"It was an affirmation of the fact that black people were of a common community and had a common destiny," he said. "It's an issue of people wanting to be proud of who they are."

State Rep. Opio Toure of Oklahoma City said the pledge is similar to "affirmations" recited during annual Kwanzaa celebrations.

"It's designed to make people feel good about being African-American," he said. "It's fairly common. It's not a big thing."

Nathan McGuire, the Millwood middle school principal, said students discovered the pledge about four years ago while researching black history. Last year, the pledge was posted on the district's website.

"By no means did our students and teachers in 1997-98 mean to promote [black] nationalism or separatism," he said. "They saw the pledge as something inspirational and motivational."

Dr. Griffin said she has been told that some classes had recited the black pledge. She said no one is required to do so.

"That is not recited in any of our assemblies," she said. "It is not recited in the classroom."

She said students regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag at assemblies.

Although she said she was suspicious of the motives of some of the e-mail writers, "This does not excuse having the pledge [on the website] and not having it in context. In the future, anything that goes on the site must come through me first. We're going to scrutinize it a bit closer."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2002

Answers

I find that threatening to the US, actually. [The pledge, I mean. I didn't read all the article.]

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2002