Every other Tuesday, the team being Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
It’s almost the Fourth of July. It's also almost the 250th birthday of America. And the American flag — and by extension, red, white and blue — is everywhere.
Civics 101 host Hannah McCarthy spoke with Julia about the origins of the American flag and how the symbolism of the flag has changed over time.
Transcript
Well let’s start at the beginning. Where did the flag and its design come from?
We needed a flag because we were at war: the Revolutionary War. We needed to distinguish ourselves from Britain. We needed something to fly from forts [and] to carry in battle. Flags at that time were largely about military operations. So that first military flag, the Continental Colors or the Grand Union flag, had the British Union Jack in the upper left hand corner, aka the canton, and 13 alternating red and white stripes in the body.
But eventually Congress realized that we needed our own distinct American flag. The Continental Congress passed a flag resolution on July 14th, 1777. The design [was] 13 stripes, alternating red and white, a canton with 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation. Now, for a time, stars and stripes alike would be added as new states joined the Union until Congress, in what I consider a bit of aesthetic wisdom, limited the stripes to 13.
Okay, so how did the flag go from having a more military purpose to a symbol of America?
There was certainly flag revelry here and there. The famous Star Spangled Banner, a nickname for the actual physical flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Francis Scott Key to write his war poem, was trotted out to mark special occasions, for example.
But the first real flag boom came in the 1860s, during the Civil War, when the South Carolina Confederate soldiers raised their Palmetto Guard flag over Fort Sumter. The first national flag of the Confederacy would later fly over Sumter from 1861 to 1863. Now, suddenly, you had a visual representation of a splintered union and, importantly, of two opposing sides. Union supporters began flying the United States flag from post offices and schoolhouses. They tucked miniature flags into their hats and lapels. This was also an era where photography and lithography were on the rise, allowing for the images of both the Confederate and United States flags to proliferate. The American flag was not simply a symbol of our military anymore, it was a symbol of the union that almost wasn't. And by the time it was resecured, the flag as a national symbol was here to stay.
Today, the American flag is on everything…T-shirts, paper plates…but it’s also perceived as politicized by some, representing a party instead of the country. Has the flag been a symbol of division before and is it possible for the flag to become a symbol of unity instead?
Well, yes. And not just during the Civil War. During the Vietnam War, the American flag represented to some a government engaged in abusing its power. It is in part because of those who burned the American flag in protest that the Supreme Court came to decide that U.S. flag desecration was a protected form of speech. But the division we see today, the flag being perceived as being leveraged by, claimed by, representing a certain side or politic or president, there's really only one precursor for that. We haven't seen that kind of divisive symbolism since the Civil War.
Now, in terms of the second part of that question, and this is just my personal opinion, the flag has not ceased to be a symbol of unity. Perception, of course, matters. But if you see the American flag as a symbol that is yours but not that of other citizens, or as something that has ceased to become yours, if you ever felt it was, I think it is worth asking what the enduring symbol of the Union should mean, and choosing what to do with it from there.
