ST. PAUL, Minn. – After six months of heavy discussion and what seemed endless pondering, the Minnesota State Emblems Redesign Commission has made its choice. The new state flag, if the Legislature accepts the Commission’s recommendation:
> A field of three bold horizontal stripes – a white, a firm green and a light blue.
> A firm blue inverse-triangular field evoking the shape of Minnesota.
> An eight-point star (yes, it’s the North Star).
The choice received favorable reviews as distinctive among the flags of the 50 states and as uniquely bespeaking Minnesota. The Commission will meet once more and perhaps rejigger some detail. But the parameters of the design are firm. The design was Number 1953 among more than 2,000 citizen submissions.
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Options on easel. Minor adjustments still to be worked out at final Commission meeting.
Commission’s mission
The Commission’s mandate from the 2923 Legislature to “accurately and respectfully reflect Minnesota’s shared history, resources and diverse cultural communities” but without “symbols, emblems, or likenesses that represent only a single community or person, regardless of whether real or stylized.” The current flag, which nobody likes much and which many disdain, features the outgoing state seal, which includes racist imagery — a white male settler tilling the land as an Indigenous man on horseback rides off into the distance.