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Montgomery, Alabama (U.S.)

Montgomery County

5:8 image(s) by permission of David B. Martucci
image(s) from American City Flags, Raven 9-10 (2002-2003), courtesy of the North American Vexillological Association, which retains copyright.

Current Flag
Seal
Fire and Rescue

See also:

Current Flag

Text and image(s) from American City Flags, Raven 9-10 (2002-2003), courtesy of the North American Vexillological Association, which retains copyright. Image(s) from American City Flags by permission of David B. Martucci.

Design

The field of Montgomery’s flag is divided diagonally, gray at the hoist, red at the fly. A diagonal blue stripe, fimbriated in white with seven five-pointed white stars spaced evenly on the blue, separates the gray and the red. On a field of 5 by 8 units, the blue stripe is one unit in width (including fimbriations) and slants from the top 5 units from the hoist to the bottom 2 units from the hoist. In the center of the field, superimposed on the blue stripe and adjacent fields, is an open laurel wreath in gold 2.5 units in diameter. The fields on either side of the wreath’s interior are counterchanged (colors alternated) with those of the exterior, red on the hoist side and gray on the fly side. Above the wreath near the top and beginning 2 units from the hoist on the gray field is CITY OF, and below, on the red field beginning near the blue stripe and extending to within one unit of the fly’s edge, is MONTGOMERY, all in white block letters.
John M. Purcell, American City Flags, Raven 9-10, 2002-2003

Symbolism

Gray, from the color of the uniforms of the soldiers of the Confederate States of America, represents the Confederacy. Red, the color of the saltire on the state’s flag, symbolizes Alabama. Blue denotes the “blue and gray” unity of today (the uniforms of the Union soldiers during the Civil War were blue). The seven white stars symbolize the seven original states of the Confederacy, “brought together in the center wreathed in glory and honor”, according to the city’s chamber of commerce.
John M. Purcell, American City Flags, Raven 9-10, 2002-2003

Selection

In November 1951, the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce sponsored a contest for a new city flag. The chamber and the city’s board of commissioners appointed a board of judges, consisting of Mrs. Marie Bankhead Owen, Miss Ethel Johnson, Colonel Clanton Williams, Dr. Gorden Chappell, and Rabbi Eugene Blachschleger, to select a winner from the nearly 300 entries submitted.
Flag adopted: 19 April 1952 (official).
John M. Purcell, American City Flags, Raven 9-10, 2002-2003

Designer

The winner was Robert S. Ryan. The chamber, establishing the designer’s credentials as a citizen of the city, gives a larger biography than usual about Ryan, who at the time was a 33-year-old native of Montgomery, son and grandson of native Montgomerians, and a great-great-grandson of a pioneer Alabamian who came to this country from Ireland in a sailboat and landed at Mobile, Alabama. He is a World War Two veteran, and both great-grandfathers were Confederate soldiers from Montgomery.
John M. Purcell, American City Flags, Raven 9-10, 2002-2003