Editing Flag of Alabama (section)

==History==

===1861 flag===
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On January 11, 1861, the Alabama Secession Convention passed a resolution designating an official flag. Designed by several women from [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], final touches were made by Francis Corra of that city.<ref name="fotcal">{{Cite web |author=Bradley |first=Robert B. |year=2000 |title=Flags of the Confederacy – Flags of Alabama |url=http://www.confederateflags.org/states/FOTCalabama.htm |access-date=November 17, 2007 |work=Flags of the Confederacy }}</ref> One side of the flag displayed the [[Liberty (goddess)|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".<ref name="1861flag">{{Cite web |author=Alabama Department of Archives & History |year=2001 |title=The Secession Convention Flag |url=http://www.archives.state.al.us/emblems/sessflag.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080115211507/http://www.archives.state.al.us/emblems/sessflag.html |archive-date=Jan 15, 2008 |access-date=November 17, 2007}}</ref> The reverse side of the flag had a cotton plant with a coiled rattlesnake. The text [[noli me tangere|"Noli Me Tangere"]], ("Touch Me Not" in [[Latin language|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.<ref name="1861flag"/>

===Current flag===
[[File:Alabama state flag.jpg|thumb|left|The Alabama state flag displayed at [[Ivy Green]], [[Helen Keller]]'s birthplace in [[Tuscumbia, Alabama|Tuscumbia]]]]
[[File:Flag of Alabama (square).svg|thumb|130x130px|right|The Alabama state flag with a square shape.]]
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."<ref>''Code of 69'' (1975) § 1-2-5</ref> St. Andrew's cross represents the cross on which [[Andrew the Apostle|St. Andrew]] was crucified.<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/politics-clipping-mar-28-1906-3120824/|title=Alabama's Red Cross Flag|newspaper=[[New York Times]]|date=March 28, 1906|access-date=March 28, 2022}}</ref>

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.<ref name=":0" />  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.<ref name="ag87">{{Cite web |author=Siegelman |first=Don |year=1987 |title=Opinion of Don Siegelman |url=https://www.alabamaag.gov/Documents/opin/8700238.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080414021933/http://www.ago.state.al.us/oldopinions/8700238.pdf |archive-date=April 14, 2008 |access-date=November 17, 2007 |publisher=Office of the Attorney General of the State of Alabama}}</ref> Despite this, the flag is still often depicted as being square, even in official publications of the U.S. federal government.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/sd109-18/sd109-18.pdf|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|year=2007|title=Our Flag|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805003027/http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/sd109-18/sd109-18.pdf|archive-date=August 5, 2010}}</ref>

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 flag|Cross of Burgundy]].<ref name="SJLR">{{cite journal |last1=Mignanelli |first1=Nicholas |last2=Slinger |first2=Sarah |title=A Matter for Interpretation: An Inquiry into Confederate Symbolism and the Florida State Flag |journal=University of Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review |date=2020 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=126–129, 134–137 |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/umrsj10&id=279&collection=journals&index= |access-date=March 26, 2022}}</ref> 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 of the Confederate States of America|flags]] used decades earlier by the [[Confederate States of America]], a group of states, including Alabama, that declared [[Secession in the United States|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.<ref name=sn>{{cite news|last1=Williams|first1=Dave|title=Flag debate spreading across Deep South|url=http://savannahnow.com/stories/091700/LOCflaginsight.shtml#.VaunxRNVhBd|access-date=March 25, 2022|work=Savannah Morning News|date=September 17, 2000|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722185513/http://savannahnow.com/stories/091700/LOCflaginsight.shtml#.VaunxRNVhBd|archive-date=July 22, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Still, various people have asserted over the decades that the design was drawn from the Confederate battle flag.<ref name="SJLR" />

In 1900, the ''[[Montgomery Advertiser]]'' reported the flag was "a memory and a suggestion of the Confederate battle flag".<ref>{{cite news |date=12 December 1900 |title=The Flag of Alabama |newspaper=Huntsville Weekly Democrat |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/54577632/alflag-19001212-repeat/ |access-date=5 April 2022}}</ref> In 1906, a piece in the ''[[Birmingham Age-Herald]]'' stated the Alabama state flag "has no history woven into it".<ref name="nyt" /> 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".<ref>{{cite book |author1=McAdory Owen |first=Thomas |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofalabama01owen |title=History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography |date=1921 |publisher=The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company |volume=1 |location=Chicago |page=592 |author1-link=Thomas M. Owen}}</ref> The authors of a 1917 article in ''[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]]'' expressed their opinion that the Alabama flag was based on the Confederate battle flag.<ref>Lt. Commander Byron McCandless & Gilbert Grosvenor. "Flags of the World." ''[[National Geographic Magazine]].'' Vol 32. No. 4, pp. 281–420 (October 1917).</ref>

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.<ref name="hlr">{{Cite web |author=Alabama Department of Archives & History |year=2007 |title=Flag: Hilliard's Legion |url=https://archives.alabama.gov/referenc/flags/075.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220329232107/https://archives.alabama.gov/referenc/flags/075.html |archive-date=Mar 29, 2022 |access-date=March 28, 2022}}</ref> She said Sanford's design was meant to preserve some of the distinctive features of the Confederate battle flag, particularly the Saint Andrews Cross.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-dec-14-1924-3126058| title=Interesting Facts Regarding Alabama Flag| newspaper=Anniston Star|date=December 14, 1924 |access-date=March 28, 2022}}</ref>

In a 1987 letter, Alabama Attorney General Don Siegelman wrote that the flag was modeled after Sanford's [[60th Alabama Infantry Regiment]] battle flag.<ref name="ag87" />

More recent commentators note that the Alabama flag was adopted during a period of promotion of the "[[Lost Cause of the Confederacy|Lost Cause]]" of the culture of the antebellum South.<ref name="sn" /> Other former Confederate slave states, beginning with [[Mississippi]], and followed by [[Florida]], had also adopted new state flags around the same time that they [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disenfranchised African Americans]] and passed laws establishing Jim Crow segregation.<ref name="Coski8081">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zs0VJTbNwfAC&pg=PA80|title=The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem|date=2005|first=John M.|last=Coski|access-date=March 25, 2022|pages=79–81|location=United States of America|publisher=First Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-01983-0|quote=The flag changes in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coincided with the passage of [[Jim Crow laws|formal Jim Crow segregation laws]] throughout the South.|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309032406/https://books.google.com/books?id=zs0VJTbNwfAC&pg=PA80#v=onepage&q&f=falsee|archive-date=March 9, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Ingraham |first1=Christopher |date=June 21, 2015 |title=How the Confederacy lives on in the flags of seven Southern states |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/21/how-the-confederacy-lives-on-in-the-flags-of-seven-southern-states/ |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 25, 2022}}</ref>

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.<ref name=murray>{{cite news|url=https://www.waff.com/2020/06/30/historical-record-thin-specifics-regarding-alabamas-flag-design/|title=Historical record thin on specifics regarding Alabama's flag design|first1=|last1=|website=[[WAFF (TV)]]|date=June 30, 2020|access-date=March 28, 2022}}</ref> According to Murray, the flag's connections to the battle flag are thin and based on suppositions.<ref name="murray"/> 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."<ref name="murray"/> 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.<ref name="murray"/>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="175px">
Hilliard's Legion Flag.jpg|According to Bell Allen Ross, the Hilliard's Legion Flag served as inspiration for John W.A. Sanford Jr.'s Alabama flag design.
Flag of Cross of Burgundy.svg|The Spanish Cross of Burgundy.
</gallery>