Flag of Mississippi
Mississippi’s flag, in law since January 2021, has a white magnolia blossom on a blue field, ringed by 20 white stars for the 20th state and a gold star for the state’s first peoples, with “IN GOD WE TRUST” beneath; red bands and gold lines run beside the blue. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History reads the magnolia as hospitality, hope and rebirth, the blue as vigilance, justice and perseverance, the red as hardiness and valour, and the gold as the state’s arts.
How to read it
House Bill 1 of 2021 wrote the flag into Mississippi law. The House passed it 119 to 1 on 5 January 2021, the first day of the session, the Senate 43 to 7 the next day, and Governor Tate Reeves signed it on 11 January 2021, the Secretary of State’s Blue Book records. The design is the one the Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag chose on 2 September 2020 from nearly 3,000 public submissions, and which voters approved in the general election of 3 November 2020. It was designed by Rocky Vaughan with Sue Anna Joe, Kara Giles and Dominique Pugh, who drew the magnolia, and Micah Whitson is credited with adding the Native American star, which the Associated Press reports is made of diamond shapes significant to Choctaw culture. The magnolia is also the state flower and state tree. The Department of Archives and History’s description, which the Blue Book quotes, gives each part a meaning: the magnolia often blooms more than once and has a long season, and its gold stamen and the gold lines are a nod to the visual arts, literature, music and performing arts that began in the state.
Also searched as: flag of mississippi, mississippi flag, mississippi flag meaning, mississippi state flag.
The 1894 flag and the change of 2020
From 1894 Mississippi’s flag carried the Confederate battle flag in its upper corner by the staff. The law adopting it was left out of the revised code of 1906 by oversight, and in 2000 the state Supreme Court found that Mississippi had no official flag; in a referendum in April 2001 voters chose to keep the 1894 design. House Bill 1796, signed by Governor Reeves on 30 June 2020, retired it and set up the commission, requiring a new design that included “In God We Trust”, left out the battle flag, and would “honor the past while embracing the promise of the future”. Signing the new flag into law, Reeves called the old one “a prominent roadblock to unity”.
How many voted for it
Sources give the vote differently. The Blue Book says 73 percent of Mississippi voters approved the design; the Associated Press reported that more than 71 percent of the people who voted that day said yes. The magnolia design was the only proposal on the ballot.
Read next
- Next in US state flagsFlag of North CarolinaNorth Carolina’s flag has a blue band at the pole holding a white star between a gilt N and C, beside a red bar over a white one. NCpedia, the State Library’s encyclopedia, explains its two dates: 20 May 1775 is the traditional date of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and 12 April 1776 honours the Halifax Resolves. The flag law gives the colours no meaning.
- The same shape in African flagsFlag of AngolaAngola’s flag is red over black with a yellow emblem in the centre: part of a cogwheel, a machete and a five-pointed star. Its constitution says the red is the blood shed by Angolans under colonial oppression, in the liberation struggle and in defence of the country, and the black is the African continent; the cogwheel stands for workers and industry, the machete for peasants, farming and the armed struggle, the star for international solidarity and progress, and their yellow for the country’s wealth.
More US state flags
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with letters and numbers, lines, squares and rectangles or stars.
Sources
- Mississippi Official and Statistical Register 2024–2028 (Blue Book): General Information, Mississippi Official and Statistical Register 2024–2028, General Information: Mississippi State Symbols, Mississippi Secretary of State, Mississippi’s State Flag; About the “In God We Trust” Flag Design
- Mississippi governor signs law for flag without rebel sign (AP, January 2021), Associated Press, “Mississippi governor signs law for flag without rebel sign”, 11 January 2021, as published by WLOS, Associated Press (via WLOS), Article text
- Mississippi commission selects final flag design containing a magnolia flower (Ballotpedia News), Ballotpedia News, “Mississippi commission selects final flag design containing a magnolia flower”, 3 September 2020, Ballotpedia, Article text
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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