"Virginia's House of Delegates now opens its sessions by reciting a salute to the state flag that some members say evokes painful memories of the segregationist past.

It's not the words themselves that are troubling, critics say - it's their origin. The salute was written in 1946 by a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The organization's Virginia chapters open their meetings with the salute, which the General Assembly in 1954 adopted as 'the official salute to the flag of Virginia.'

Del. Dwight Jones, D-Richmond, said on the House floor Friday that he might have voted against reciting the pledge had he known its history. He said he felt like 'the wool was pulled over my eyes' by the salute's supporters.

'I want to be sure that when I put my hand on my chest and salute a flag, I do so for a Virginia that embraces diversity and inclusion,' said Jones, who is black.

Del. Robert McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, proposed adding the salute to each day's opening ceremonies when the House adopted rules governing the 2000 session Wednesday. Another new rule requires the delegates to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The new rituals are largely a product of the 'explosion of patriotism' after the Sept. 11 attacks, McDonnell said. The Senate has not made similar changes.

The Salute to the Flag of Virginia was written by Cassie Gravely of Martinsville, who died in 1967. It reads:

'I salute the flag of Virginia, with reverence and patriotic devotion to the 'Mother of States, and Statesmen which it represents - the Old Dominion 'where liberty and independence were born.'

House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, defended the salute.

'Certainly those words have nothing but reverence and respect for the commonwealth of Virginia,' he said. 'Those words do not reflect any of the racial difficulties or hate that was going on in our country in 1954.'

McDonnell said he had not been aware of the pledge's history until the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an article about it Friday. However, he said he probably would have proposed adding the salute to the House' ritual even if he had known the background.

'We're all flawed and failed human beings,' he told his colleagues.

'The authors of the constitutions of the United States and Virginia were slave owners, but that does not diminish their great writings that are the backbone of our democracy.'

House Minority Leader Franklin P. Hall, D-Richmond, said it might be wise to replace or rewrite the salute.

'The fact is, it makes a number of people very uncomfortable,' he said.

The flag salute dispute is the latest example of Virginia's struggles over its Old South heritage.

In 1997, the General Assembly retired 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia' as the state song because of lyrics that critics said were racially offensive. Other battles have been fought over special Confederate license plates, Confederate History Month proclamations, the addition of a statue of tennis star Arthur Ashe to those of Confederate heroes in Richmond and the inclusion of a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee on the Richmond floodwall." (Associated Press, The Daily Progress, January 12, 2002)