PALMDALE – The Antelope Valley Service Organization Association (AVSOA) in collaboration with the City of Palmdale will hold its annual Flag Day Ceremony this Sunday, June 14.
The event begins at 11 a.m. at the gazebo in Poncitlán Square, located at 38315 9th Street East in Palmdale.
Bobby Breech, chairman of AVSOA will serve as Master of Ceremonies.
The ceremony will begin with a special invocation, which will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, “National Anthem” and singing of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
For more information, call Bobby Breech at 661-992-4949.
The history of Flag Day
“The flag of the United States shall be of thirteen stripes of alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white in a blue field, representing the new constellation. “
This was the resolution adopted by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.
Although there are many claims to the first official observance of Flag Day, all but one took place more than a century after the flag’s adoption in 1777.
The first claim was from a Hartford, Conn., celebration during the first summer of 1861. In the late 1800s, schools all over the United States held Flag Day programs to contribute to the Americanization of immigrant children, and the observance caught on with individual communities.
The most recognized claim, however, comes from New York. On June 14, 1889, Professor George Bolch, principal of a free kindergarten for the poor of New York City, had his school hold patriotic ceremonies to observe the anniversary of the Flag Day resolution. This initiative attracted attention from the State Department of Education, which arranged to have the day observed in all public schools thereafter.
Soon the state legislature passed a law making it the responsibility of the state superintendent of public schools to ensure that schools hold observances for Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day and Flag Day. In 1897, the governor of New York ordered the displaying of the flag over all public buildings in the state, an observance considered by some to be the first official recognition of the anniversary of the adoption of the flag outside of schools.
Another claim comes from Philadelphia. In 1893, the Society of Colonial Dames succeeded in getting a resolution passed to have the flag displayed on all of the city’s public buildings. Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin and the president of the Colonial Dames of Pennsylvania, that same year tried to get the city to call June 14 Flag Day. Resolutions by women were not granted much notice, however, and it was not until May 7, 1937, that Pennsylvania became the first state to establish the June 14 Flag Day as a legal holiday. Flag Day is a nationwide observance today, but Pennsylvania is the only state that recognizes it as a legal holiday.
Both President Wilson, in 1916, and President Coolidge, in 1927, issued proclamations asking for June 14 to be observed as the National Flag Day. But it wasn’t until August 3, 1949, that Congress approved the national observance, and President Harry Truman signed it into law.
[Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs]
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