When was 'under God' added to the Pledge?

The phrase under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, becoming part of the official text on Flag Day, June 14 of that year. President Dwight Eisenhower signed Public Law 83-396 on that date, after Congress passed the legislation through the unanimous consent of both chambers earlier in the spring. The change inserted under God between Nation and indivisible, transforming the original phrase one Nation indivisible into one Nation under God, indivisible.

The amendment came at the height of the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in deep ideological competition. President Eisenhower had been baptized as a Presbyterian in February 1953, just twelve days after his inauguration, and during a Lincoln Day sermon at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church on February 7, 1954, the Reverend George MacPherson Docherty preached that the Pledge as written could be recited by an atheist Soviet citizen with equal sincerity to an American, and that something distinctly American was missing from the affirmation. Eisenhower was in the audience and was deeply moved.

The Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the United States, had been adding under God to its own recitations of the Pledge since 1951 and had been lobbying Congress for the change. Representative Louis Rabaut of Michigan and Senator Homer Ferguson, also of Michigan, introduced legislation, and the bill moved quickly. At the signing ceremony Eisenhower declared that from this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.

The full Pledge text after the 1954 amendment reads: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The phrase has been challenged in court several times. Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004) was the most prominent challenge, brought by California atheist Michael Newdow on behalf of his daughter, but the Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of standing without reaching the merits. Lower courts have generally upheld the phrase against Establishment Clause challenges, treating it as ceremonial deism.

Naturalization candidates should remember that 1954 is the year under God was added, while Francis Bellamy wrote the original Pledge in 1892.