Today is National Flag Day. Today we mark the anniversary of the adoption of our flag, and all that it stands for, even as we use it to honor the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in our history. On Sunday, after news of the attack at the Orlando nightclub, President Obama ordered that all U.S. flags be lowered to half-staff until June 16, as a mark of respect for those killed.
We are all Americans. Flying your flag today can be a symbol of unity, and a reminder of the freedoms we all hold dear, as a democracy. Over the years, some people have chosen not to fly a flag because they believe that the Stars and Stripes has been co-opted by a particular political party or ideology, and used as a measure of one’s patriotism. Let’s get over that. In our communal horror at another violent attack perpetrated on our fellow Americans, let’s remember the flag’s symbolism covers us all. Every single individual, every group.
In 1914, according to USflag.org, Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, delivered a Flag Day address in which he repeated words he said the flag had spoken to him that morning:
“I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself.”
In the same vein, Lane further said: “I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a people may become…. I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution. I am no more than you believe me to be and I am all that you believe I can be.”
No one can co-opt the American flag. Fly it with pride, whatever your political affiliation, or lack thereof. Fly it to remind ourselves that we value peace and denounce violence. Fly it to remind ourselves that we value freedom, liberty and justice. Fly it to remind ourselves that everyone is equal. Fly your flag to remind everyone that we are the United States.
On May 30, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson, in issuing a proclamation deeming June 14 as Flag Day, stated: “It is the anniversary of the day upon which the flag of the United States was adopted by the Congress as the emblem of the Union.”
Wilson also wrote, “On that day rededicate ourselves to the nation, ‘one and inseparable’ from which every thought that is not worthy of our fathers’ first vows in independence, liberty, and right shall be excluded and in which we shall stand with united hearts.”
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