Alabama state symbols

How to read it

Each one is named in the Code of Alabama. The yellowhammer has been the state bird since a 1927 act (§ 1-2-7). The camellia, Camellia japonica, has been the state flower since 1959, and the southern longleaf pine, Pinus palustris, the state tree since 1997 (§§ 1-2-11 and 1-2-12). The motto is on the state coat of arms, which a 1939 act describes (§ 1-2-1); the law gives its English as “We Dare Maintain Our Rights”, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History gives both that and “We Dare Defend Our Rights”. The archives say the Latin was the work of Professor W. B. Saffold of the University of Alabama, and that the phrase was on the coat of arms completed in 1923.

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Alabama’s symbols and when each was adopted

Why Alabama is the Yellowhammer State

The Alabama Department of Archives and History says Alabama has been known as the “Yellowhammer State” since the Civil War. In its account, a company of cavalry from Huntsville rode past older troops in new uniforms trimmed with bits of bright yellow cloth, and a soldier called out “Yellowhammer, Yellowhammer, flicker, flicker!” The name spread through the Confederate Army until all Alabama troops were known unofficially as “Yellowhammers”. The bird itself is the northern flicker, the name the archives give as correct under the American Ornithologists’ Union.

The camellia replaced the goldenrod

Alabama’s first state flower was the goldenrod, made law in 1927. A 1959 act named the camellia instead, and in 1999 the Legislature added its scientific name, Camellia japonica. The same section of the code names the oak-leaf hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia, the state wildflower. The state tree changed in the same way: the Legislature chose “the Southern pine tree” in 1949 and, because there are so many kinds of pine, named the southern longleaf pine in 1997.