Pledge politics: `black pledge of allegiance' on a school Website riles critics, who call it divisive

Insight on the News, March 4, 2002 by Ellen Sorokin

A public-school district in Oklahoma City has been accused of espousing black-separatist doctrine because a copy of the "black pledge of allegiance" is posted on its Website (www.millwood.k12.ok.us/ Students.htm) just beneath the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.

The separatist pledge appeared on the site last spring after students attending Millwood public schools discovered it while studying black and cultural pride. It apparently originated in California, written by the founder of a violent 1960s radical group known as the United Slaves, and begins: "We pledge allegiance of the red, black and green/Our flag, the symbol of our eternal struggle/and to the land we must obtain."

Critics argue the pledge creates division rather than diversity among its students. "It's misguided and counterproductive to education," says Russell Adams, a professor and chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Howard University in Washington. "It does not accelerate a positive learning experience for African-American kids and other kids around them."

Others question the school district's motives for posting the pledge. African-Americans make up almost 99 percent of the 1,050 students in three Millwood schools. "The question here is not about whether it's legal for the school district to post the pledge; it's more of a policy question at this point;" says Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a public-interest law firm focusing on religious liberty.

Students do not recite the black pledge in school, notes school Superintendent Gloria Griffin, but they do recite the American pledge. She also agrees with critics who say featuring the black pledge on the Website is counterproductive to education, but she stands by the decision to post it nonetheless. "This is just part of an outgrowth from studies the students had done, but it's not part of the written curriculum" she says.

In fact, Griffin forgot the pledge was on the site until the day before Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, when the school district began receiving angry e-mail from across the country. "Other than being the target of misinformation, I don't know what to make of this," she says. "Something has been taken out of context. As a result, it really borders on slander."

The pledge generally is attributed to Maulana Karenga, former leader of the Marxist group United Slaves, which gained notoriety on Jan. 17, 1969, when some followers fatally shot two members of the rival Black Panther Party on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles. Karenga, who later served time in prison for the 1970 torture of two female followers, is acknowledged as creating the Kwanzaa holiday, of which the black pledge is part, in 1966. The red, black and green flag referred to in the pledge is associated with black nationalism and pan-Africanism. The tri-colored flag "has become the symbol of devotion for African people in America to establish an independent African nation on the North American continent," notes Melanet.com, an Afrocentric Website based in Washington.

Griffin has no plans to remove the pledge from the school's site, fearing such a gesture would send the wrong message to students. "I don't think African-Americans should be asked to give up their symbols," she says. "Symbols are reminders of something that represent a custom and a part of history." But school administrators plan to add a paragraph next to the pledge, explaining how it appeared on the Website. Griffin also plans to conduct a survey of parents, teachers and students to find out whether the community wants the pledge on the site.

ELLEN SOROKIN WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER DAILY, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.