Mississippi state symbols

How to read it

The Secretary of State’s Blue Book says the Legislature and the Women’s Federated Clubs chose the mockingbird in 1944; the Hancock County Historical Society cites the law as Chapter 326, Laws of Mississippi 1944. The magnolia won a vote of 23,278 schoolchildren for state flower in November 1900, with 12,745 votes, but the Blue Book dates its official designation to the 1952 Legislature (Chapter 340 of that year, according to the Historical Society); the magnolia tree was designated on 1 April 1938, in Chapter 366, Laws of Mississippi 1938. “Virtute et Armis” has been on the coat of arms since 1894. Senate Bill 2285, signed on 7 February 2001, re-adopted that coat of arms with the motto on its red scroll.

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Mississippi’s symbols and when each was adopted

The motto was not adopted as a motto

The Blue Book points out that the Legislature has not adopted “Virtute et Armis” as an official motto as such. It is called the motto on the coat of arms: first in the coat of arms of 1894 (Chapter 37, Laws of the Extraordinary Session of 1894) and again in the act of 2001.

“In God We Trust” is on the seal and the flag

The words “In God We Trust” are not the state motto. A 2014 act added them to the Great Seal, and the law that called for a new state flag required every proposed design to include them.

Two dates for the magnolia tree

The Secretary of State’s own publications disagree. The Blue Book dates the state tree to 1 April 1938 and cites the 1938 session law; the office’s one-page symbols sheet says the Legislature chose the magnolia as state tree in 1952, the year the Blue Book gives for the state flower.