Alabama

Use	Civil and state flag
Proportion	2:3 (by convention)
Adopted	February 16, 1895; 129 years ago (1895-02-16)
Design	A crimson cross of St. Andrew on a white field.
Flag of the governor of Alabama
Use	State flag
Design	The State Flag with the state military crest and coat of arms of Alabama in the lower and upper sections

The current flag of Alabama (the second in Alabama state history) was adopted by Act 383 of the Alabama Legislature on February 16, 1895:^[1][2]

"The flag of the State of Alabama shall be a crimson cross of St. Andrew on a field of white. The bars forming the cross shall be not less than six inches broad, and must extend diagonally across the flag from side to side." – (Code 1896, §3751; Code 1907, §2058; Code 1923, §2995; Code 1940, T. 55, §5.)

The cross of St. Andrew referred to in the law is a diagonal cross, known in vexillology as a saltire. Because the bars must be at least six inches (150 mm) wide, small representations of the Alabama flag do not meet the legal definition. In 2001, a survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association ranked Alabama's state flag 29th in design quality of the 72 Canadian provincial, U.S. state and U.S. territorial flags.^[3] There are sources that believe the saltire was intended to memorialize the Confederacy, but no legislative records indicate the inspiration for the flag.

History

1861 flag

Obverse (above) and reverse (below) of the 1861 flag

On January 11, 1861, the Alabama Secession Convention passed a resolution designating an official flag. Designed by several women from Montgomery, final touches were made by Francis Corra of that city.^[4] One side of the flag displayed the goddess of Liberty holding an unsheathed sword in her right hand; in her left, she held a small blue flag with one gold star. Above the gold star appears the text "Alabama" in all capital letters. In an arch above this figure were the words "Independent Now and Forever".^[5] The reverse side of the flag had a cotton plant with a coiled rattlesnake. The text "Noli Me Tangere", ("Touch Me Not" in Latin), was placed below the cotton plant. This flag was flown until February 10, 1861, when it was removed to the governor's office after it was damaged by severe weather. It was never flown again.^[5]

Current flag

Alabama's current flag was adopted in 1895. The legislation introduced by Representative John W. A. Sanford Jr. stipulates: "The flag of the state of Alabama shall be a crimson cross of St. Andrew on a field of white. The bars forming the cross shall be not less than six inches broad, and must extend diagonally across the flag from side to side."^[6] St. Andrew's cross represents the cross on which St. Andrew was crucified.^[7]

The legislation that created the state flag did not specify that the flag was to be square but defined the width of the bars of the cross.^[1] In 1987, the office of Alabama Attorney General Don Siegelman stated in a letter that the proper shape of the state flag is rectangular, as it had been depicted numerous times in official publications and reproductions.^[8] Despite this, the flag is still often depicted as being square, even in official publications of the U.S. federal government.^[9]

The saltire of Alabama's flag most closely resembles the saltire of the flag of Florida, which was derived from the Spanish Cross of Burgundy.^[10] Southern Alabama was originally part of Spanish Florida and subsequently West Florida.

Alabama adopted its flag design in 1895, five years earlier than Florida did.

Theories on origin

The inspiration for Alabama's flag is not known. Many have noted that a saltire also appears in flags used decades earlier by the Confederate States of America, a group of states, including Alabama, that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War. No documentation in the legislative records indicates the Alabama flag was intended to commemorate the Confederacy.^[11]

Still, various people have asserted over the decades that the design was drawn from the Confederate battle flag.^[10]

In 1900, the Montgomery Advertiser reported the flag was "a memory and a suggestion of the Confederate battle flag".^[12] In 1906, a piece in the Birmingham Age-Herald stated the Alabama state flag "has no history woven into it".^[7] In 1915, Thomas M. Owen, the first director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, wrote that the flag bill's sponsor and the rest of the legislature had intended to "preserve, in permanent form, some of the more distinctive features of the Confederate battle flag".^[13] The authors of a 1917 article in National Geographic expressed their opinion that the Alabama flag was based on the Confederate battle flag.^[14]

In 1924, Bell Allen Ross, a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, said that Rep. John W.A. Sanford Jr. modeled his design of the Alabama flag on the battle flag used by his father, John W. A. Sanford, while commanding the Hilliard's Legion regiment.^[15] She said Sanford's design was meant to preserve some of the distinctive features of the Confederate battle flag, particularly the Saint Andrews Cross.^[16]

In an 1987 letter, Alabama Attorney General Don Siegelman wrote that the flag was modeled after Sanford's 60th Alabama Infantry Regiment battle flag.^[8]

More recent commentators note that the Alabama flag was adopted during a period of promotion of the "Lost Cause" of the culture of the antebellum South.^[11] Other former Confederate slave states, beginning with Mississippi, and followed by Florida, had also adopted new state flags around the same time that they disenfranchised African Americans and passed laws establishing Jim Crow segregation.^[17][18]

But other contemporary commentators, such as Steve Murray, Director of the Alabama Department of History and Archives, believe the origins of the flag are unclear.^[19] According to Murray, the flag's connections to the battle flag are thin and based on suppositions.^[19] Murray said, "I would conclude that if they were wanting to evoke the Confederate battle flag, they would have been more explicit about doing it either in the design which could have more closely resembled the Confederate flag."^[19] Murray also noted that Alabama may have wanted to approve a new state flag to prepare for an exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, later that year.^[19]

Governor's flag

The flag of the governor of Alabama is a variant of the state flag. In the top saltire, the flag displays the state coat of arms. The bottom saltire contains the state military crest, which consists of a cotton plant with full bursting boll.