Sunday promises to be a very busy day. Americans of all--you should pardon the expression--stripes will claim the national banner as their own in many often conflicting ways. Not only is it Flag Day, but it falls during Pride Month, the nation's 250th Birthday hoopla, and on the 80th birthday of the man who makes everything about himself. He is celebrating with a widely mocked UFC fight on the White House grounds under a soaring pavilion--an event which seems to be still unraveling hour by hour.
Naturally the folks behind the hugely successful No Kings Day protests are offering an alternative. A 90‑minute Rise Up, Sing Out concert at The Town Hall in New York City featuring Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Sasha Allen, Jane Fonda, and Joy Reid, co‑presented with the Committee for the First Amendment. The event will stream nationwide as local groups host of watch parties. Despite organizers requesting that previously announced local rallies and marches, Indivisible McHenry County is going ahead with its plans for a We the People Rally on Sunday, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at Rt. 31 and McCullom Lake Road in McHenry.
It is also LGBTQ+ Pride Month and McHenry County will celebrate at the Woodstock Pride Parade and Festival on the Square from 11 am to 4 pm. That overlaps with the McHenry roadside rally. This year there has been organized "push back" from MAGA groups and provocateurs at many local Pride marches and events.
Flag Day might be lost in the shuffle if folks on all sides were not waving it and claiming it for their own.
We’ve been here before as an updated blog post.
In case you hadn’t noticed today is officially Flag Day, a demi-holiday easily overlooked. It is celebrated by displaying the American Flag. Veterans groups often organize solemn flag disposal ceremonies.
No other country on Earth makes quite the fetish of its flag as does the United States. The word idolatry comes to mind. At its worst it elevates the symbol—the Flag—over the substance—the democratic values espoused in the Declaration of Independence and protected by the Constitution. It is an absolute truism that those who wrap themselves most tightly in the Flag—and these days that is not just a figurative term—are the most disingenuous and dangerous. Witness any performance by the Resident of the White House and the seditious mobs that laid siege to the Capitol.
Donald Trump and one of his regular Flag fondling.
On the other hand—especially those who served in the Armed Forces or who were raised in a veteran’s household—have been taught to respect the Flag and “the nation for which it stands.” I still hang the Flag on my house on patriotic holidays and always place my hat over my heart when it passes by in a parade. It’s just the way I was raised.
Part of the national devotion to the Flag comes from an odd combination of cultural coincidence and calculated political strategy. Our National Anthem, not officially adopted until 1931 but widely used on patriotic occasions for more than a century prior, may be the only national song about a flag.
The Grand Army of the Republic promoted the Flag as a symbol of the Union and a thumb-in-the-eye to former Rebels.
Not widely displayed except at military posts, on Navy ships, and on some Federal buildings prior to the Civil War, the Grand Army of the Republic heavily promoted its use after the war in a spirit of triumphalism of the Union over the vanquished South. For that reason, display of the national flag was highly unpopular in the South until World War I.
The flag and the Pledge of Allegiance were used to Americanize immigrants, especially children as in this Jacob Riis photo.
The Pledge of Allegiance was penned by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and socialist, for use during celebration the 400th anniversary of the supposed discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. Quickly adopted by schools as part of the daily ritual of beginning classes, the Pledge does not swear allegiance to the government—an inclusive tip-of-the-hat to resentful former Rebels—or even to the Constitution, but to a symbol, the Flag.
By the turn of the 20th Century the Flag was being used as a symbol of assimilation for the waves of emigrants swamping our shores—and as a test of their loyalty. The most popular composers of the era—the March King John Philip Sousa and Broadway’s George M. Cohan made literal flag waving as popular as moon-June-spoon ballads.
During World War I, the Woodrow Wilson administration used flag imagery as part of their very sophisticated domestic propaganda operation designed to rouse support of the war effort and raise Liberty Loans. After the war, the Flag was used to rally support for suppression of the labor movement, radicalism, Socialism, and Communism said to represent sinister alien ideologies.
The flag has often been appropriated to give patriotic cover to hate groups. Witness this 1925 Ku Klux Klan march in Washington. But it was also carried by militant unionists at the Lawrence Textile Strike and Chicago Memorial Day Massacre and also by Civil Rights Movement marchers.
Wilson proclaimed the first official Flag Day in 1916. In 1949, with the country in the grips of yet another Red Scare, Congress made it an official Federal Holiday, although withholding the paid days off for Federal employees standard for other holidays.
June 14 is Flag Day because on this date in 1777 the Continental Congress passed the Flag Act which officially described a new national banner:
Resolved: That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.
Betsy Ross almost certainly did not sew the first flag, Washington never viewed it, and the 13 stars in a circle banner may not have never been actually used during the Revolution. None of that stopped myth makers.
The new official flag—not, by the way, likely first sewn by Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross—was based on the unofficial Grand Union flag used by General George Washington during the Siege of Boston. That flag had the same thirteen alternating red and white stripes but had the English Union Jack in its canton. Of course, that was before Independence was declared in July of 1776. It wouldn’t do to keep the reference to the British flag.
The Act was vague—it did not describe the arrangement of the stars in the field, how the stars should be shaped, or even how large the field should be. Local flag makers working from the sketchy description produced many variations with five, six, and even twelve-pointed stars; with stars of different sizes; and many variations of arrangement. Also, the shade of blue used for the field depended largely on what blue cloth the maker might have at hand.
The familiar thirteen stars in a circle was not only not standard, but some historians also doubt if it was used at all during the Revolutionary War. Others believe that it might have been the flag used at the British surrender at Yorktown.
After Vermont and Kentucky were added to the Union two additional stars and two stripes were added. That was the Star Spangled Banner observed still flying over Ft. McHenry in Baltimore harbor after an all-night British naval bombardment in 1815. It became apparent that with more new states, adding stripes would quickly become clumsy. In 1818, after five more states were added, Congress fixed the number of stripes at thirteen with an added star for each new state.
But it still did not specifically designate an arrangement for the stars. During the Civil War flags with all manner of arrangements were used. It was not until the creation of the 48 star flag in 1912 that a specific arrangement was established. The current 50 star flag has been in use since July 4, 1960 after the admission of Hawaii to the Union. This year will mark the 66th anniversary of that flag, which has been in service longer than any previous national banner.
Today, the flag is waved by forces on both sides of the great social and political divide even as the nation for which it stood after the perilous on the verge of a second civil war in January 2021. But many on the left are still chagrined and conflicted about the flag. Does it represent the on-going lethal threat to which the Black Lives Matter Movement responded? The ongoing expressions of White supremacy and the continued attacks on basic voting rights? The attempts to degrade women and attack their bodily autonomy? The treatment of immigrants and refugees? The continuing militarism and low-grade but bloody war around the world? Or can the flag be honored as a yet unfulfilled promise?
The upside-down flag is a traditional sign of distress and has been adopted by Trumpistas, election deniers, and some alt-right militia type groups much to the dismay of many veterans. Even a Supreme Court Justice--guess who--was caught flying it at both his Washington area home and a Rhode Island summer retreat.
Both sides of the current American social chasm claim to love their country but have seemingly irreconcilable notions about what America is, what it means, and what it should become.
As for me, I will choose hope. I’ve got my flag out today on the belief that it stands for “Liberty and Justice for All.” What does your flag mean?
