Introduction: The New Pledge Project (TNPP) began as a question that stayed with me from childhood into my seventies — a question about allegiance, identity, and what truly binds us together as Americans. This page shares the story behind that question, the experiences that shaped it, and why, after a lifetime of reflection, I believe our allegiance must return to the one thing that defines us all: The Constitution. 

This all began for me sometime in the mid to late 1950s, when I was in elementary school.  It was the era of tornado drills, fire drills, and nuclear attack drills.  Post‑WWII, post‑Korean War, the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.  It was also the time of McCarthyism and the Cold War.  Even elementary school kids had some awareness — however fuzzy — of what was happening around us.  Especially little Black girls like me, learning about Brown v. Board of Education and Little Rock.

Of all the things swirling in my young mind, one question lodged itself deeply: Why were we pledging our allegiance to a flag?

Every morning, we recited a pledge that spoke of giving our allegiance to a symbol, a representation.  And even as a child, I wondered: shouldn’t we be pledging our allegiance — our commitment, our dedication — to our country itself?  A flag is fine.  A flag is good to have.  But it is still a flag.  If it stands for the country, then why not pledge our allegiance to the country?  Even at almost 76, I have never been able to shake that question.

A second factor emerged as I grew older: the oath taken by members of our military.  The Vietnam War shaped my generation, and it carried a particular weight for Black Americans.  I have been an activist in one form or another since my undergraduate years, and one of the things I learned along the way was the gravity of the military oath — sworn not to the flag, but to The Constitution.

Part two of my lifelong question became this: If our service members swear an oath to The Constitution, why are we — the citizens they defend — not pledging ourselves to the same?

These questions never left me.  Every time I attended an event where the Pledge was recited, they resurfaced.  I pushed them aside as my own private quirk, but they never disappeared.  Always there.  Always waiting.

Now we find ourselves in a time when the very thing that defines our nation — the Constitution — is being ignored, attacked, and shredded.  The bedrock of this country is under serious and persistent assault.  Adding insult to injury, individuals both public and private, powerful and everyday, have co‑opted the flag as a kind of dog whistle for a twisted, bigoted, racist distortion of the United States of America.  The flag we are told to pledge allegiance to has been hijacked into something that stands in direct opposition to the ideals this nation aspires to.  So, do we still want to pledge allegiance to a symbol rather than the substance?

As fraught as our nation’s history is — and as imperfect as the foundational documents that shape it may be — it is The Constitution to which we owe our allegiance.  Not the flag.  Not a symbol that has been turned, by a misguided few, into meaning something other than our highest ideals .  Our allegiance must be refocused on what truly defines us.

And so, after a lifetime of carrying these questions, I finally say it plainly:

I pledge allegiance to THE CONSTITUTION.

— Karen M. 

Founder, The New Pledge Project March 2026