Proclamation 3854—Flag Day and National Flag Week, 1968

On June 14, 1777, in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress raised a symbol of hope and freedom for our infant Nation. It resolved that our flag should be a banner of thirteen alternating red and white stripes, with thirteen white stars in a field of blue.

The United States flag has become an inspiration not to one people alone, but to millions abroad who seek justice and equality.

It flies above a land, and represents a people, blessed by fortune and labor to know prosperity and promise beyond any in the history of man.

Yet it has too often been carried into battle, or lowered to mark tragedy.

It is our task to work toward the day when it may be raised above a land in peace, a land of genuine equality and dignity, a land of justice under law—a land where neither violence nor oppression holds sway.

We should revere our flag, and the dream it represents. And we should re-dedicate ourselves to achieving that just and peaceful America over which it may proudly wave.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning June 9, 1968, as National Flag Week. I direct the appropriate Government officials to display the flag on all Government buildings during the week. And on Flag Day, June 14, I urge all Americans to fly the flag.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of June, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-second.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON