Sep. 8—ROCHESTER — More than a year after Minnesota adopted a new state flag, the symbol remains for many in the state a source of division and contention rather than a banner of unifying pride.
Signs of many people’s unwillingness to accept it are not hard to find. The Republican Party of Minnesota has said it will never be reconciled to the new flag and considers the old 1893 flag as the state’s true symbol.
Republican candidates shun it. Emails sent out by GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen’s campaign all end with old state seal. A petition on change.org , a platform for pressing changes in public policy, has garnered more than 40,000 signatures to reinstate the old flag.
“The new flag has no meaning to a lot of people,” said Steve Patterson, an Austin small business owner who ran as governor as an independent in 2022. “(The old flag) told a story about how Minnesota was created.
“I don’t understand the point of trying to erase history, because when you erase history, you eliminate the opportunity to talk about it.”
In 2023, the new flag and seal were chosen by a 13-member State Emblems Redesign Commission created from legislation passed by lawmakers when both the Legislature and governor’s office were controlled by the DFL.
The adoption of a new flag followed years of effort by lawmakers critical of the old flag, who saw it as offensive and outdated. Its depiction of a white settler tilling the land as an Indigenous man rides horseback was seen as harmful and offensive to indigenous communities. The old flag’s imagery was excessively busy and not particularly eye-catching, critics said.
“Our current flag is problematic. I think we all know that. We’ve evolved into a more diverse state and I think that’s more reflective of that,” said Gov. Tim Walz at the time of the new flag’s adoption last year.
Yet, if the issue over a new flag was settled legislatively, it hasn’t been resolved emotionally or sentimentally in the hearts of many, as the old flag began to crop up on porches, garages and neighborhoods where none had flown before.
Lee Herold, owner of Herold Flags in Rochester, said the controversy over the new flag hasn’t abated in the year and half since its adoption. The division is reflected in both the conversations he has with customers and the breakdown of sales between the new and old flag.
“There’s very few people in the state that have as many flag discussions on the state flag as I do,” Herold said. “We have this discussion every day, several times.”
The controversy has been good for business. Herold said sales between the old and new flag run generally 50-50, though it fluctuates. He would give the edge to the 83 flag, which has experienced a revival in sales at the moment.
“We’ve never sold so many of the older Minnesota flags. People who have never flown it are flying it now,” Herold said.
Herold said people who are partial to the old flag come in two varieties. One group didn’t like the change and thought the old flag was fine and should have been left alone. The other group is more open to change, but “don’t like this particular flag.”
Herold recalled how a recent customer bought a number of new flags and desktop items with the new seal on them. Assuming the man was a new flag enthusiast, Herold was taken aback when the man said, “they had a lot of nice flags in the contest. Why’d they pick this one?”
Yet many embrace the new state emblem. Kelly Kaseman, a Rochester resident, has the new flag fluttering from his porch in Rochester’s historic southwest neighborhood.
The flag contains on its left side a dark blue background with a white, eight-point star. One of the points of the star points north, representing the state’s motto “L’etoile du Nord.” The rest of the flag is covered in a solid, bright blue, representing water.
“I think it is a better representation of the state than our old flag,” Kaseman said. “It is, in a way, showing the future of the state.”
Some folks don’t take kindly to change, Kaseman said, particularly when it comes to symbols representative of the state. He’s noticed “plenty of folks, even in this neighborhood,” starting to fly the old flag now.
“I almost guarantee that they had almost no opinion of the flag prior to the change,” he said.
Unlike the old flag, “which was not great in terms of flag design,” the new flag incorporates elements that are true to the state’s character, he said. The blue captures the state’s 10,000-lake reputation. The Star of the North so prominently displayed reflects its historical status as the northernmost state.
Kaseman said he doesn’t see the new flag displayed in his neighborhood too much. Some of his friends display it on bikes in the form of stickers. Some friends of his up the hill fly the new flag with elements of the LGBTQ Ally flag incorporated.
“It’s more distinctly politically charged,” Kaseman said.
Rep. Kim Hicks, a DFL legislator from Rochester who supported the legislation that led to the flag makeover, said a process was put in place to change the flag and it was followed.
“Change is hard,” Hicks said in an interview Thursday. “I don’t know what’s happening, you know, for everybody, but I can speak to myself as a Minnesotan and a mom. We evacuated a school in Rochester today because of a threat. Two children are dead because of a shooting. Groceries are up, right? The stock market is down. Child care centers are closed or closing. I’m hearing from families all the time who are telling me that they can’t find child care. I’m hearing from families who are struggling to keep their heads above water. No one has called me and been like, ‘hey, the star on the flag is the biggest concern for me right now in my life.'”
Herold said Minnesota’s flag problem isn’t unique. Most states that have changed their flags have run into speed bumps in terms of public acceptance.
Herold sees the controversy resolving itself or at least dialing down a bit in one of two ways. One is that the Legislature in some future session takes a shot at making revisions to the flag to generate more enthusiasm for it. But he’s doubtful that will happen because it’s too much of a hot potato.
The more likely outcome is that the dispute and rancor will begin to fade over time.
“Kids will grow up with it being the flag. They will see it. They will get used to it. I don’t know if it will become popular, but I think it will become generally accepted. It almost has to.”