RED, WHITE & WHO KNEW?
How our flag got this way
Why red, white and blue? Why these colors and not, oh, green and beige? Flag Day is Thursday, so it’s an apt moment to wonder, and a quick glance into the murky and legendprone history of our national flag offers a fairly solid answer.
First, yes, Flag Day is without question a third-rate patriotic holiday, if you consider the Fourth of July as the undisputed No. 1, with the solemn military Memorial and Veterans days tying for second. Nobody gets off work for Flag Day. It’s sort of an Arbor Day for flags, almost like one of those made-up Hallmark holidays, like Grandparents Day.
Except Flag Day actually com- memorates something real — June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress decreed: “The flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
Why those colors? In the 19th century, when people felt free to make stuff up, one patriotic guide suggested red, white and blue were handed down by God at Mt. Sinai.
The short, factual answer is our colors are red, white and blue because the British flag is red, white and blue. Changes that seem revolutionary in retrospect actually occur in stages, and when George Washington began leading his troops, they saw themselves as British citizens fighting for their rights. Thus his Grand Union Flag, raised over the Continental Army in January 1776, had the British Union Flag where the field of stars is now.