page_title: Pledge of Allegiance
section_title: Salute
hierarchical_section_title: Pledge of Allegiance / Salute
caption_attribution_description: English: American schoolchildren pledging allegiance to the flag in a former form of the salute, specifically the Bellamy salute.
context_page_description: The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States of America. Such a pledge was first composed, with a text different from the one used at present, by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army Officer during the Civil War and later a teacher of patriotism in New York City schools. The form of the pledge used today was largely devised by Francis Bellamy in 1892, and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942. The official name of The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1945. The most recent alteration of its wording came on Flag Day in 1954, when the words "under God" were added.
context_section_description: Swearing of the Pledge is accompanied by a salute. An early version of the salute, adopted in 1887, was known as the Balch Salute. This salute accompanied the Balch pledge and instructed students to stand with their right hand outstretched toward the flag, the fingers of which are then brought to the forehead, followed by being placed flat over the heart, and finally falling to the side.
  In 1892, Francis Bellamy created what was known as the Bellamy salute. It started with the hand outstretched toward the flag, palm down, and ended with the palm up. Because of the similarity between the Bellamy salute and the Nazi salute, which was adopted in Germany later, the US Congress stipulated that the hand-over-the-heart gesture as the salute to be rendered by civilians during the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem in the US would be the salute to replace the Bellamy salute. Removal of the Bellamy salute occurred on December 22, 1942, when Congress amended the Flag Code language first passed into law on June 22, 1942. Attached to bills passed in Congress in 2008 and then in 2009 (Section 301(b)(1) of title 36, United States Code), language was included which authorized all active duty military personnel and all veterans in civilian clothes to render a proper hand salute during the raising and lowering of the flag, when the colors are presented, and during the National Anthem.
  Sarah Churchwell has argued that the term "salute", as it relates to the Bellamy and Balch salutes, historically referred to the words of the pledges themselves, not a physical gesture.
caption: Children performing the Bellamy salute to the flag of the United States, 1941.
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