Introduction
If you attended public schools in Hicksville in the 1950s, you probably remember when the school day routine set aside time for prayer. You didn’t have to pray aloud, but if you chose to, the only prayer you could recite was the one written in 1951 by the State Board of Regents. This situation arose because prayer in public school – which had always happened – had become an increasingly contentious issue, and was repeatedly subjected to legal challenges, which often probed the interrelationships of the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
In 1962, a case before the nation’s Supreme Court resulted in a ruling that ended use of the Regents Prayer. I don’t recall that the Court’s reasoning was explained to us at that time by any of my teachers, but I think I can give you the gist of it. If government cannot make any laws about establishing religion(s), how can it expect to get away with writing its own prayer, and telling students that they can pray out loud – but only if they recite the prayer the government wrote?
There’s a little more to it, of course, like protecting kids who wanted to silently pray the prayers of their own religions, but had to listen to the other kids reciting the so-called Regents Prayer. So, in light of the Court’s decision, in 1962 the State had to pivot, and it did. It forbade praying aloud, but it permitted local school boards to instead offer a brief silence for meditation.
I don’t have a clear memory of the transition. I recall neither my last pre-ban recitation of the State’s prayer, nor the first silent meditation. I do, however, recall the morning of May 15, 1964, on which – together some other students in my Homeroom, and students in many other Homerooms – I recited the Regents Prayer aloud rather than meditating. Those of us who did so had somehow been convinced that such a protest would serve a purpose, but by now I’m fairly certain that it did not. I’m also fairly certain that our words unintentionally gave Hicksville High the distinction of being the last public school in New York State in which students recited the Regents Prayer as part of the school’s daily school routine – albeit illegally, as doing that had been banned long before.
Background: Prayer and God Were Everywhere
Growing up in those years, it was easy for school children to see that prayer had always been a visible part of public schools. We said “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance; we heard our trust in God proclaimed in the fourth verse of the National Anthem; we saw that same proclamation on the coins and dollar bills we spent. We sometimes even saw it on the postage stamps we licked.
However, we hadn’t been taught in school that America’s long relationship with God had run hot and cold. The Pledge of Allegiance was in use for more than three decades before President Eisenhower had it altered to incorporate the words “under God.” He did that to encourage American children to be religious as well as patriotic, because he was convinced that to prevail over world Communism someday, the nation would need adults who were steeped in religious belief.
Despite Francis Scott Key’s having recorded use of the phrase “In God is our trust” in 1814, the motto appeared on no U.S. money until a half-century later, when it was added to the two-cent piece, officially for the purpose of boosting the morale of Union troops fighting in the Civil War. One wonders just how that connection was supposed to work.
Variety of two-cent piece that was the first U.S. coin to proclaim “In God We Trust”
Over the subsequent decades, the motto was gradually added to, and at times was removed from, other denominations of coin. Only on the eve of World War II did the motto first find a home on all varieties of U.S. coinage at once. Inexplicably, it did not appear on paper currency – where it would prove to be more noticeable -- until 1957!
A couple of personal thoughts on this topic:
- Increasing the visible use of “In God We Trust” during times of national crisis smacks of desperation, and it also brings to mind the 1950s preoccupation with subliminal messaging. Was the change in your pockets supposed to subconsciously remind you to pray for a country that was in dire need?
- The most sincere Presidential reaction ever to the motto may have been that of President Teddy Roosevelt, when he directed the U.S. Mint to exclude “In God We Trust” from new $20 Gold pieces! Why? At that time, these coins were the de facto standard currency for payments to criminal enterprise, most notably at brothels and casinos. Roosevelt felt that it was hypocritical, and probably contrary to the Bible’s Second Commandment, to cite trust in God when paying criminals for having made one’s sins possible.
Protest
It was organized by word-of-mouth, and I never learned conclusively who first had the idea, and who first discussed it with whom. Over the course of a couple of days, I was approached by multiple friends and acquaintances. Each simply asked that I inform people in my Homeroom that students throughout the school would pray the old Regents Prayer “as a protest” on a given day. This is what the Long Island Press reported the day after it happened:
The reaction from Conservative School Board member Bruno, heretofore best known for his attempts to remove and ban books from the school libraries, was surprisingly cautious. Unlike most students and many adults, he probably understood the gist of the Supreme Court decision. He also realized that praying aloud only works if everyone uses the same words – and that a School Board’s stipulating what words of prayer could be spoken would always be deemed unconstitutional.
Becker Amendment
The Becker Amendment mentioned in the news article above was well publicized at the time as a possible way of overcoming Constitutional obstacles, but awareness of its substance was thin. Considering the amendment in hindsight, the phrase “smoke and mirrors” comes to mind.
It proposed that writing legislation in a certain way could preclude its EVER being deemed unconstitutional by the judiciary. News reports of the day made the amendment sound viable, and a product of creative and rigorous thinking. Instead of protesting, the public could agitate for the passage of the Becker Amendment.
Those who actually studied the proposed amendment tended to see through it. How could legislation reliably see the future and fend off all new Constitutional challenges? Who could believe that there was a magic formula for writing legislation by which the courts would abide, and stop pursuing the checks and balances imposed upon them by the Constitution? And so, the Becker Amendment went to committee for further study, withered, and died there. Most members of Congress found it contrary to the practice of government defined by the Constitution.
No Follow-Up to the Protest
The State responded to the protest simply by reiterating facts that were known beforehand. To his credit, Principal Galloway spoke at some length, both thoughtfully and sincerely.
Not to their credit, the student leaders and their spokesman remained anonymous (which was atypical for 1960s protests) and, curiously, quiet. Presumably they had urged their peers to protest in expectation of making a big splash, but looking around afterwards, no one seemed to have got wet. Was something else supposed to have happened, something that fell through at the last minute, thereby turning the protest into a dry run? No one was saying.
I was disappointed at myself: I had answered a call to action without knowing what was supposed to happen afterwards – and nothing did. All we had to show for our efforts was the belief we’d probably been part of the last school-wide recital of the Regents Prayer in New York State public schools.
And we didn’t even get any souvenir T-shirts for our efforts.
Ciao!
Appendix: List of Images and Their Sources
1. Title Block (excerpt from Newspaper Article re End of HHS School Prayer Protest)
Long Island Press, May 19, 1964
author’s personal collection (i.e., paper media, not electronic)
2. 1871 Example of U.S. Mint copper two-cent piece
Numista.com
3. Newspaper Article re HHS School Prayer Protest
Long Island Press, May 16, 1964
author’s personal collection (i.e., paper media, not electronic)
4. Newspaper Article re End of HHS School Prayer Protest
Long Island Press, May 19, 1964
author’s personal collection (i.e., paper media, not electronic)
