If you’ve been paying attention to the news, you’ve probably heard that the state of Mississippi has now revoked the official status of its state flag, which has the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia in the upper left-hand corner. All Mississippi state flags flying outside government buildings are set to be taken down within the next fifteen days and a commission has been set up to design a new flag for the state.
I was reading about this news and it got me thinking about other state flags. I started looking up state flags and realized that there are some other states that could really stand to change their flags too. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the states that I think need to change their flags the most.
Basic rules of flag design
First, let’s talk about how you can tell a flag is bad. The North American Vexillological Association has a list of five rules for how to make a good flag, which are as follows:
- “Keep it simple: The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory.”
- “Use meaningful symbolism: The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes.”
- “Use 2–3 basic colors: Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set.”
- “No lettering or seals: Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal.”
- “Be distinctive or be related: Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections.”
American state flags are notoriously bad about breaking rules one, three, and four. Many American state flags are simply composed of the state seal in front of a background of a solid color. Vexillologists absolutely loathe these flags and sometimes derogatorily refer to them as “seal-and-bedsheet flags.”
Many state flags also have the name of the state they represent written on them in huge block lettering. Vexillologists generally detest these flags as well. Here is the North American Vexillological Association’s explanation for why flags should not have lettering or seals:
“Words defeat the purpose: why not just write “U.S.A.” on a flag? A flag is a graphic symbol. Lettering is nearly impossible to read from a distance, hard to sew, and difficult to reduce to lapel–pin size. Words are not reversible—this forces double– or triple–thickness fabric.”
“Don’t confuse a flag with a banner, such as what is carried in front of a marching band in a parade, or draped behind a speaker’s platform—such banners don’t flap, they are seen from only one side, and they’re usually seen closer–up.”
‘Seals were designed for placement on paper to be read at close range. Very few are effective on flags—too detailed. Better to use some element from the seal as a symbol. Some logos work; most don’t.”
In addition to these aesthetic guidelines, flags should be designed with cultural awareness. They should be designed to minimize obvious negative associations and to inspire positive feelings towards the state that the flag is supposed to represent. They should not promote racism or contain depictions of racial stereotypes.
A new flag for Mississippi
With these considerations in mind, let’s talk about the flag of Mississippi. From an aesthetics standpoint, the flag is relatively well-designed; the design is simple, it’s easy to recognize, it only uses three colors, and it doesn’t contain any letters or seals. The only problem is that it contains the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, which pretty much ruins everything.
Technically, the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia was never actually adopted by the Confederacy as an official national flag. Nonetheless, it remains the most recognizable symbol of the Confederacy today and it is commonly referred to as “the Confederate flag.” As a result of its association with the Confederacy, this flag is inextricably associated with slavery and white supremacy.
Georgia used to have the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia in its state flag, but the Georgia General Assembly minimized it in 2001 and removed it altogether in 2003, leaving Mississippi as the last remaining state to include the Confederate saltire as part of its state flag. People called on Mississippi for years to remove it, but the Mississippi state government did not listen.
Then, finally, on 28 June 2020, the Mississippi state legislature passed a bill to get rid of the old state flag and establish a commission to design a new state flag that will not include the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. Instead, the bill stipulates that the new flag must include the motto “In God We Trust.” Two days later, on evening of 30 June, Governor Tate Reeves signed the bill into law. This means that Mississippi is officially getting a new flag.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of Mississippi’s old state flag, the one that it has now officially gotten rid of
Personally, I hope that Mississippi eventually adopts the Hospitality Flag, which was designed in 2014 by the Mississippi artist Laurin Stennis as a replacement for the old Mississippi flag. This flag not have any Confederate symbols on it. It has a relatively simple, yet striking design. It’s also easily recognizable from a distance and it doesn’t have any writing or seals on it.
Unfortunately, the law signed by Governor Reeves stipulates that the new Mississippi state flag must include the motto “In God We Trust,” so it looks like, at least for now, the state of Mississippi isn’t going to adopt Stennis’s design—or at least they aren’t going to adopt it without modification.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the Hospitality Flag, designed in 2014 by Mississippi artist Laurin Stennis
Massachusetts
Mississippi is far from the only state that has a highly problematic flag. Most notably, the current flag of the state of Massachusetts has all sorts of problems as well. The flag is composed of the Massachusetts state seal plopped in the middle of a white background. The seal in the center of the flag depicts a stereotypical native American man with feathers tied behind his head who looks very similar to the man in the logo for the Boston Redskins. Directly above the native man’s head, there is a disembodied arm clothed in a long sleeve brandishing a European-style broadsword.
Officially speaking, the native American man on the seal is supposed to represent peace, because he has his bow turned to the side and his arrow is pointing downward. Likewise, the disembodied arm brandishing the broadsword is officially supposed to represent how the United States won its independence from Britain through the American Revolution.
If you examine the seal from a different perspective, though, it looks as though it is representing the conquest and subjugation of the native peoples of North America by Europeans. The sword, which clearly belongs to a European colonizer, is looming ominously over the native man’s head and the native man has his bow turned away and his arrow pointing down as a sign of submission to his colonialist overlords.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the current flag of Massachusetts
The flag is even more racist when you consider its history; although the current version of the Massachusetts seal portrays the native American man wearing a tunic, in an older version, he is naked with only leaves covering his genitals, thus representing the European colonists’ view that the native peoples of North America were ignorant savages who lacked civilization and didn’t even wear clothing.
In some early versions of the seal, the native man is also portrayed with a scroll coming out of his mouth that reads: “Come over and help us,” thus portraying the European colonists as merciful benefactors working to “help” the native peoples by forcing them to convert to Christianity and forcing them to adopt European culture.
ABOVE: Early version of the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from before 1780, showing the native American man naked, with a scroll coming out of his mouth that reads, “Come over and help us.”
People have been calling on Massachusetts to change its state flag and seal for years. Massachusetts state representative Byron Rushing first introduced a bill for the flag and seal to be revised in 1984 and his bill has been introduced in every session of the Massachusetts state legislature ever since then. Despite this, no proposal to revise the flag and seal has ever been approved and the flag and seal have both remained completely unchanged.
The irony is that Massachusetts already has an excellent official state flag that isn’t racist, but they aren’t using it for anything. The Massachusetts naval ensign is a white flag with the simple green shape of a pine tree in the center. It’s a simple, distinctive flag that’s easily recognizable from a distance and doesn’t have any writing on it. It’s also based on the famous “Pine Tree Flag” that was used throughout New England during the American Revolution, meaning it has a proud history behind it.
Unfortunately, since Massachusetts doesn’t have its own navy, the naval ensign is used for… well, just about nothing. I think Massachusetts should ditch the racist flag with the sword and the native American stereotype and just adopt the naval ensign as the official flag for the whole state.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the naval ensign of Massachusetts
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the “Pine Tree Flag,” a flag that was used in New England during the American Revolution
Minnesota
Mississippi and Massachusetts are probably the worst offenders when it comes to racist flags, but they are far from the only ones. For instance, let’s take a close look at the current flag of the state of Minnesota. It’s another one of those awful seal-and-bedsheet flags that vexillologists hate; the flag is nothing but the state seal of Minnesota plopped on a blue background.
If you look closely at the state seal on the flag, though, you’ll notice that there’s a stereotypical native American man wearing a feathered headdress riding on horseback in the background. Meanwhile, in the foreground, a white settler is plowing a field.
It’s bad enough to have a stereotypical representation of a generic native American on your state flag; it’s even worse that the flag makes it seem as though the settlers and natives were living together, side-by-side in perfect peace and harmony. We all know that’s not how it really happened.
The native American on horseback is officially supposed to represent Minnesota’s native inhabitants. I think it’s great that Minnesota wants to honor the native inhabitants of the state, but there are much better ways to give them representation on the state flag than this—ways that don’t involve stereotyping native people or whitewashing history.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the current flag of Minnesota
The Minnesota state flag is so bad that, in 1989, the vexillologists William Becker and Lee Herold actually designed a new flag for the state, which is known as the “North Star Flag.” The flag won a contest hosted by the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 2001 for the best design for a new Minnesota flag and it has been widely endorsed by Minnesota politicians.
The North Star Flag is a much better flag than Minnesota’s current official flag. It’s distinctive. It makes good use of space. It has no writing or human figures on it. It’s simple and easy to draw. It has no details that can’t be seen from a distance. It’s an ideal flag.
The flag even succeeds in representing Minnesota’s native inhabitants in a way that doesn’t involve blatant stereotyping; the waves on the flag are supposed to represent the Lakota phrase mní sóta, meaning “sky-tinted waters,” which is where the state of Minnesota receives its name.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the “North Star Flag,” a proposed replacement for the current Minnesota flag
Virginia
Racism isn’t the only problem that beleaguers American state flags, though. For instance, the current flag of the state of Virginia isn’t really racist per se, but it is definitely problematic because it is unnecessarily violent.
Like so many other American state flags, the flag of Virginia is a seal-and-bedsheet flag. It’s just the obverse of the Virginia state seal plopped on a blue background. Things get worse, though, once you see what the obverse of the Virginia state seal depicts; it shows the personification of virtue standing atop the sprawled-out corpse of a murdered tyrant.
Virtue has her left breast uncovered and her left foot resting on the murdered tyrant’s chest. She is holding a spear, which she is pointing down at the tyrant’s body. The tyrant’s crown is lying toppled on the ground beside him. In his right hand, the dead tyrant is holding a whip and, in his left hand, he is holding a broken chain. The motto at the bottom reads “Sic semper tyrannis,” which means “Thus always to tyrants” in Latin.
I understand that the image is supposed to symbolize the rejection of tyranny in all forms, but the eye-straining complexity of the seal and the sheer brutality of the scene depicted on it makes it completely unsuitable for a state flag. Virginia needs to get a new flag.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the current flag of Virginia
Fortunately, you can find a whole bunch of proposed replacements for the flag of Virginia on vexillology.fandom. Most of these flags keep the same theme of overthrowing tyranny, but represent it in far simpler, less graphic ways. Here are the three proposals that I think are the best.
ABOVE: One proposal of a flag that could replace the current flag of the state of Virginia
ABOVE: Another proposal of a flag that could replace the current flag of the state of Virginia
ABOVE: Another proposal of a flag that could replace the current flag of the state of Virginia
Washington
In addition to the flags that are racist and the flags that are unnecessarily violent, there are also a lot of flags that simply aren’t representative. For instance, the current flag of the state of Washington is composed of a green background with the seal of the state of Washington, which is literally just a picture of George Washington’s face, plopped in the middle.
I personally think that no human figure should ever appear on a state or national flag. A flag is supposed to represent the entire population of a state or country. No single human figure can ever represent the entire population of a state or country. Thus, anytime you put a human being on a flag, you are inevitably giving greater representation to some people than others.
The flag of Washington state is especially problematic because the person on their flag is specifically George Washington—an ultra-wealthy straight white male who owned slaves, died over two hundred years ago, and notably never even set foot in the state of Washington.
I’m not trying to bash George Washington here. I am not saying that he was a terrible person or that we shouldn’t honor him. I’m just saying that having his face as the flag of the state of Washington doesn’t really tell us anything about the state, its history, or the people who live there; all it tells us is “Hey, our state’s named after George Washington.” The people of Washington can do better.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the current flag of the state of Washington
And a whole bunch of others…
The states I have talked about here aren’t the only ones that I think should consider changing their state flags; they’re just the ones that I think need to change their flags the most. Personally, I think that any state that has a flag composed of the state seal in front of a solid color should seriously consider coming up with a flag design that is more distinctive and creative.
There are way too many flags that are just the state seal in front of a blue background. States whose flags have this exact format include Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Somehow, the unofficial flag of Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited unorganized incorporated United States territory in the Pacific islands, is more aesthetically pleasing than about half the official flags of the actual U.S. states. You know you’ve got to step your game up when a few tiny islands covered in rocks and sand are beating you at flag design.
ABOVE: Image from Wikimedia Commons of the unofficial flag of Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited unorganized incorporated United States territory in the Pacific Islands
And then there is the flag of Australia, that looks like the one of a yachting club.
Hey, even Australia has a better flag than about half the U.S. states.
One thing I’m rather pleased with is the fact that my home state of Indiana actually has a pretty decent flag. Alas, some idiot felt the need to write “Indiana” on it—just in case someone forgets which state they’re in, I guess. Apart from that, though, it’s actually pretty good.
I have a feeling that some of those alternative flags will still be viewed as “colonialist” or “racist” by some section of the current bloc of protestors. I also don’t see how Washington being ultrawealthy or heterosexual has anything to do with whether or not he should be on a flag. The bit about how he owned slaves (though perhaps not a good one since he freed them before his death) is perhaps understandable but still not convincing. If the state is already named after him (believe you me, people will soon be demanding that the state change its name to “CHOP” ) then it makes sense to have his face on it.
Morally speaking, there’s nothing wrong with the fact that George Washington was an ultrawealthy straight white man. It’s not a crime to be born privileged. I’m not trying to say that he was a bad person; I’m just trying to point out that he is only a representative of an extremely narrow, historically privileged segment of the American population.
As for your argument that, since the state is named after him, it makes sense for the state flag to have his face on it, allow me to point out that the state of Virginia is named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, who is known as “the Virgin Queen.”
Does this mean that the state flag of Virginia should have a giant picture of her face on it? I don’t think so. She was the queen of a foreign country and she never even set foot anywhere on the North American continent. Her face doesn’t represent the people of Virginia, just like George Washington’s face doesn’t really represent the people of Washington.
I really don’t have a vested interest in that particular issue but considering that Washington’s statues are being torn down, I think leaving his face on the flag would be prudent given the desire to erase him from history entirely. This does sound like hyperbole on my part but I think there are reasons for believing this to be true. For instance, Gale Yee, the president of the Society of Biblical Literature (who is also American born and educated) does not know who John Adams is (she said in the introduction to a book that she edited that Thomas Jefferson was our second US President rather than the third.). For the leader of the largest scholarly organization in the world dedicated to Biblical studies to make such a blunder is a tragedy. This confirms in my mind that there is an active attempt to erase certain US figures from history, even if there are still enough resources out there to counteract this movement (though one wonders how long the counteractive resources will last under the current trend). Given the poor quality of an American education (I’m aware UIB is an R1) maybe it wouldn’t hurt to put the Queen’s face on the flag to let people know she existed?
The fact that Gale A. Yee, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, apparently referred to Thomas Jefferson as the second president of the United States rather than the third doesn’t prove that there is an organized conspiracy to erase the Founding Fathers from history; it only proves that one particular scholar who does not specialize in American history made an embarrassing mistake about American history.
Academia tends to be rather compartmentalized and, unfortunately, not all scholars are knowledgeable about subjects that are outside their area of specialty. I can guarantee you that all scholars who specialize in American history know who John Adams was. Nonetheless, I can almost guarantee you that most of those same scholars couldn’t tell you who Aischines was, even though he was a very important figure in fourth-century BC Athenian politics.
Those scholars probably couldn’t tell you much about synoikism, the reforms of Ephialtes, Athenian cleruchies, the Second Athenian League, or the Wars of the Diadochoi either—even though these are all very important subjects in ancient Greek history. The unfortunate truth is that scholars aren’t always knowledgeable about subjects that they haven’t studied professionally and sometimes they make stupid mistakes.
I do think that the United States needs to do a better job of teaching its citizens about history, but putting historical figures’ faces on state flags isn’t an effective way of doing that. (After all, most people can’t even describe what their own state flag looks like, let alone identify who is shown on some other state’s flag.)
If you want to teach people about history, you don’t do it by putting faces on flags or erecting monuments; you do it through schools. We need well-funded public schools with talented, well-paid teachers who know about history and who are dedicated to making sure their students actually learn. We also need to make sure students understand why history is important and how it affects their lives today.
Erecting monuments can be a good way to teach history if done correctly. Many however only have the persons’ name engraved on them with no plaque nearby explaining why said people are important. At my undergrad institution there is a Kent State memorial (I’m not a KSU alum) yet I’m pretty sure that I am one of the very few people ever to know that the weird looking memorial is anything besides a weird piece of art. The memorial in question only has a hard to read inscription on the bottom which requires a trained eye. If done right it could still be used as a gateway to teach about the protest movements in America but sadly that is not the case. I think the overemphasis on STEM is part of the problem. I’m probably going to get heat for this but I also blame community colleges to a certain extent. Part of this is due to CCs not having much funding for liberal arts, or it could be that CCs in general appear to be designed mostly for STEM and trade programs. As for talented teachers, if we want those, we will have to abolish teachers unions. TUs tend to almost always favor someone based solely on seniority or affirmative action and so finding a qualified teacher is harder than it should be. This also applies to the university level where even lowly lecturers often enjoy guaranteed immunity from being fired.
Good stuff as always.
A completely irrelevant nitpick: now I’m not a swordologist or anything, but the sword on the Massachusetts flag is definitely not a broadsword, but rather something like a sabre.
What are your thoughts on US county names, Spencer? I find it odd how you guys transplanted the names of these big national figures of history onto the most rural, and I suppose often secluded and remote of locations. Think about the generations of people who grew up in these places, with their heavy accents unmediated by radio or TV, and how distant Washington DC and New York – where all these bigshots presumably earned their stripes – would have been, especially before the highways and air travel.
We do this for city street names here in Europe, which is fine, but the names of our villages and county equivalents can be one, two or more millennia old – they might represent a tribe from 500 AD, a long gone forest or even an obscure god from pre-Christian times. In that context, I think something that represents or signals at the larger history of these areas would be more appropriate; something to give a county a sense of uniqueness and tradition instead of a bland strip of land with a bland president on it. Names related to indigenous tribes or culture would be delightful, but even if they couldn’t be found there’s no harm in calling it after a person (of any background) who actually grew up or lived in that area!
As bad as you might find Washington state, I would argue all those arctic islands named after a small handful of English aristocrats in Canada is far worse. Washington at least did something for your country, and it wasn’t a small feat either.
All that said, I’m not sure any amount of cosmetic name changing can take back the enormous damage that was done through Manifest Destiny. The US has long reaped the rewards from that imperialism and the clock cannot be turned back. The best it can hope to do now is using the great power is has acquired for good on the world stage, where the persecution and/or colonisation of peoples still continues in countries like China, Syria and Myanmar.
As a life long Massachusetts resident I cringe every time I see our flag so I completely agree with you that we should change it to the naval ensign. The irony is though that the original state flag (adopted in 1908) had the navel ensign on on its obverse (or at least just a pine tree) with the state seal on the other side. The current flag was not adopted until 1971 when they just put the state seal on both sides of the flag. So if we adopt the navel ensign as the new official flag we would just be going back to the original flag.