Arkansas, it’s your turn
“Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ... . ”
— From the First Amendment to Constitution
Since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown and the rising tide brought on by the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police violence, we all have been forced to reconsider not only our history but our attachments to that history. Growing up in Arkansas, I never really thought about our state flag, who designed it, when it happened, or why it shared its color scheme with another flag I saw everywhere as a child.
But, in light of recent events, where not one but two Southern states have voted to rid their flags of any Confederate symbolism, I wonder if Arkansas were to follow suit, what would our new flag look like?
In 1998, Roy Barnes was elected governor of Georgia. Barnes was a Democrat with lots of support from the local African-american population, who later made it known to him that the Georgia state flag needed an update. At the time, Georgia was using a design featuring a blue bar with the state seal in its center next to a version of the Confederate battle flag, which took up the entire right side of the flag itself. Growing up, that battle flag was everywhere under another name. I knew it only as the “Rebel flag” from Dixie Outfitters, bumper stickers, and the Dukes of Hazzard.
But, in reality, it was a reference to a time that our teachers didn’t spend much time on.
That version of the Georgia flag was created by attorney and Democratic Party leader John Simmons Bell in 1955, the same year as the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama, where Martin Luther King Jr. helped start the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1956, in direct opposition to the integration of schools after Brown v. Board of Education, Georgia Gov. Marvin Griffin signed a bill to put the Confederate battle flag so prominently on Georgia’s new flag. So, with that history behind it, Barnes and several other Georgia politicians started a long process that would see the Georgia flag changed a few times until 2004 when its current design was approved. It now features red and white stripes with the state’s coat of arms in a blue field.
ust last week the same kind of thing happened in Jackson, Mississippi, where their State Legislature met to discuss changing their state flag. The Mississippi House and Senate approved and voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the corner of its striped state flag.
In 1890, Mississippi adopted a new constitution under a white majority. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “many Mississippians opposed the 1894 design, claiming it recalled black slavery and racist traditions,” while others thought it symbolized “state pride and Southern heritage.” Its three stripes are a reference to the Confederate national flag with the battle flag in there as well.
For these states to change their flags is a big deal. Both Georgia and Mississippi were part of the Confederacy and both have a long dark history to consider. During the Reconstruction Era, the decade immediately following the Civil War, black men used their freedom to run for office and many of them succeeded. There were black men in every House in the South. There were black businessmen, black millionaires, and they were Republicans. In the years following that, however, there was a rise in white supremacy in the form of the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded by Confederate veterans at the end of the Civil War.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy was formed in 1894, the same year Mississippi adopted their Confederate-inspired flag. They and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, founded in 1896, were formed to help preserve the memory and legacy of Confederates who fought and died during the Civil War. In order to accomplish this mission, both began erecting monuments to Confederate soldiers and their commanders. The “Lost Cause” was born. That narrative sought to rewrite history by portraying Confederate leaders as heroes and ignoring the horrors of African-american slavery in the former Confederate states. Willie Hocker was born during the Civil War in 1862 Kentucky. Hocker would later go on to be a member of the UDC and the Daughters of the American Revolution in Pine Bluff.
In 1910, the USS Arkansas was being built by the
U.S. Navy. The DAR in Pine Bluff wanted to present an Arkansas flag at the new ship’s commissioning in
1912. There was no flag. So, Hocker contacted Arkansas Secretary of State Earle W. Hodges and led a process that would result in the familiar “diamonds and stars” design becoming the official Arkansas flag. Hocker’s design features the same color scheme as the old Confederate battle flag and as of 1924, it features a star above the state’s name in reference to its membership in the Confederacy.
Is it time to do away with Arkansas’s flag? Should we follow Mississippi and Georgia and give our flag a 21st-century update? If so, I have a couple ideas. First, we could take a note from other states and just put some version of the State Seal on a solid field with the name “Arkansas” written underneath it, or we could do something else. I would propose something more unique. Maybe a white field with an Apple Blossom (the state flower) blooming in its center, or maybe an Eagle in flight holding a banner with the state motto?
The ball has been served and Arkansas, it’s your turn.