Current:Home > MyMinnesota edges close to picking new state flag to replace design offensive to Native Americans-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Minnesota edges close to picking new state flag to replace design offensive to Native Americans
View Date:2024-12-23 22:37:10
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A state commission selected a basic design concept Friday for a new state flag for Minnesota to replace a current banner that is considered offensive to Native Americans, but will need more time to add the finishing touches.
The final choice came down to two templates. The panel went with one bearing a stylized dark blue shape of Minnesota on the left with an eight-pointed white North Star on it, then either horizontal stripes or a solid field on the right.
The commission then decided to consider variants on that theme when it reconvenes Tuesday, including an asymmetrical Minnesota that looks more like the state’s actual shape, and either a solid light blue field on the right, or adding a green stripe along the bottom to symbolize the state’s agricultural heritage.
“Let’s marinate these for a couple of days. I think it’s important,” said the chair of the commission, Luis Fitch. “And then let’s hear what the public and the people of the state of Minnesota have to say.”
The second-place finisher featured a pair of curving “swooshes” — one white and one light blue — symbolizing the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, against a dark blue background with a North Star in the upper left corner. To some people, the swishes also looked like loons, the official state bird. But the panel’s members opted for the design with straight, simple lines.
None of the designs that made it to the final round generated a surge of public enthusiasm beforehand. Fitch acknowledged that as he urged his colleagues to think about what design might be accepted by future generations.
“We’re not going to be able to make everybody happy,” Fitch said. “The whole idea since Day One for me was to make sure that we can do a flag that unites us, not separates us.”
Minnesota’s current flag includes the state seal against a blue background. The seal depicts a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with his rifle leaning on a nearby stump. The imagery suggests to many that the Indigenous people were defeated and going away, while whites won and were staying.
Not only do the state’s Dakota and Ojibwe tribes consider that offensive, but experts in the scientific and scholarly study of flags — known as vexillology — say it’s an overly complicated design.
Guidelines from the North American Vexillological Association say flags should be simple but meaningful, with just a few colors, easily recognizable from a distance, and without seals or lettering. Ideally, a child should be able to draw it. The group ranks Minnesota in 67th place out of 72 U.S. and Canadian state and provincial flags. Minnesota’s design dates from 1957, an evolution from the 1893 original.
The commission — which includes members of the state’s tribal and other communities of color — was tasked with producing new designs for the flag and seal by Jan 1. Unless the Legislature rejects them, the new emblems automatically become official April 1, 2024, which Minnesota observes as Statehood Day.
The commission settled earlier in the week on a new seal featuring a loon and the Dakota name for Minnesota: Mni Sóta Makoce, which can be translated as “where the water meets the sky.”
Minnesota is joining several other states in redesigning outdated flags. The Utah Legislature last winter approved a simplified flag design that still includes a beehive, a symbol of the prosperity and the industriousness of the Mormon pioneers who settled the state. Mississippi voters in 2020 chose a new state flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust” to replace a Confederate-themed flag that had been used by Ku Klux Klan groups and was widely condemned as racist.
Other states considering simplifying their flags include Maine, where voters will decide next year whether to replace their current banner with a retro version featuring a simple pine tree and blue North Star, as well as Michigan and Illinois.
veryGood! (1)
Related
- Former North Carolina labor commissioner becomes hospital group’s CEO
- Megan Fox's Bikini Photo Shoot on a Tree Gets Machine Gun Kelly All Fired Up
- Companies Object to Proposed SEC Rule Requiring Them to Track Emissions Up and Down Their Supply Chains
- Biden Power Plant Plan Gives Industry Time, Options for Cutting Climate Pollution
- Video shows masked man’s apparent attempt to kidnap child in NYC; suspect arrested
- Inside Penelope Disick's 11th Birthday Trip to Hawaii With Pregnant Mom Kourtney Kardashian and Pals
- Citing ‘Racial Cleansing,’ Louisiana ‘Cancer Alley’ Residents Sue Over Zoning
- Stop Buying Expensive Button Downs, I Have This $24 Shirt in 4 Colors and It Has 3,400+ 5-Star Reviews
- Olivia Munn Says She “Barely Knew” John Mulaney When She Got Pregnant With Their Son
- Megan Fox's Bikini Photo Shoot on a Tree Gets Machine Gun Kelly All Fired Up
Ranking
- Georgia House Democrats shift toward new leaders after limited election gains
- Pacific Walruses Fight to Survive in the Rapidly Warming Arctic
- North West Meets Chilli Months After Recreating TLC's No Scrubs Video Styles With Friends
- Arizona Announces Phoenix Area Can’t Grow Further on Groundwater
- Cleveland Browns’ Hakeem Adeniji Shares Stillbirth of Baby Boy Days Before Due Date
- A Pennsylvania Community Wins a Reprieve on Toxic Fracking Wastewater
- Love is Blind's Lauren Speed-Hamilton Reveals If She and Husband Cameron Would Ever Return To TV
- Australian Sailor Tim Shaddock and Dog Bella Rescued After 2 Months Stranded at Sea
Recommendation
-
Colts' Kenny Moore II ridicules team's effort in loss to Bills
-
States Test an Unusual Idea: Tying Electric Utilities’ Profit to Performance
-
Chicago, HUD Settle Environmental Racism Case as Lori Lightfoot Leaves Office
-
Plastic Recycling Plant Could Send Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Into the Susquehanna River, Polluting a Vital Drinking Water Source
-
Trump pledged to roll back protections for transgender students. They’re flooding crisis hotlines
-
Log and Burn, or Leave Alone? Indiana Residents Fight US Forest Service Over the Future of Hoosier National Forest
-
Climate Resolution Voted Down in El Paso After Fossil Fuel Interests and Other Opponents Pour More Than $1 Million into Opposition
-
Climate Change Made the Texas Heat Wave More Intense. Renewables Softened the Blow