A fear-filled cloud of cold war looks down on Brooklyn in the fifties. The spreading odor of McCarthyism and religious nationalism hangs heavy. I am in high school, and for the first morning of this new term, my home-room teacher is Mrs Berline. In Brooklyn public schools we don’t sing the national anthem, but rather a pledge of allegiance to the flag and then a hymn. My classmates and I stand when the loud speaker comes on but no one will be the first to sing. Mrs. Berline strides up and down the aisles shouting “Sing…Sing!” Gradually our adolescent shyness relents to her insistence and we join in the hymn… except me. For me, not singing is about religious freedom. In a public school which services all religions and non-religions, I don’t believe we should be made to recite hymns and pledges that speak of God the Father above us. I don’t believe in the ‘aboveness’ of a Father God. And as a member of a race which has suffered centuries of religious persecution, I’m a bit sensitive about it.
The second morning the teacher takes notice and interjects my name into her exhortations. “Sing Eric, sing!” I don’t. At the end of home-room she calls me to her desk and says I must sing the hymn. I tell her it’s against my principles. She dismisses me with a huff and says I’d better be singing tomorrow or the principal will hear about it.
The next morning she warns me again. “As a social studies teacher,” I ask, “don’t you teach us about religious freedom and standing on principle?” Angrily she walks me across the hall to her colleague. “What do you think of a boy who doesn’t sing the hymn?” The colleague doesn’t argue. These are days of McCarthyism, and wisdom counsels silence. But I’m not wise… never have been.
The threat of bringing my father to the principal doesn’t faze me. Guess who taught me to stand up for my rights. So the following week in the principal’s office my dad opens the meeting incensed to have lost a day’s work and tells him so in no uncertain terms. The principal asks me how it would be if everyone decided not to sing the hymn. I respond that I’m not in charge of everyone, just myself. My father backs me unconditionally.
Each morning after that, while everyone else sings the hymn, I stand in silence, and Mrs. Berline studiously ignores me.
Why do I tell you this story? Because last week, in a somewhat immature burst of indignity I took the editors to task for a copy error. Afterwards I was a bit apprehensive about how they would react, but needn’t have been. They published my complaint without censoring it. That reminded me once again how precious our freedoms are, and nowhere is this more graphically portrayed than in the press.
Thank you, editors, for the ways in which you protect our freedoms. I value the freedom to speak… and not to speak.
I truly loved this piece. I always thought that keeping references to God and religion outside of public places is the right thing to do. One nation with liberty and justice for all works fine for me.