Arkansas Flag Redesign: The Confederate Star and Bills to Change It

The Arkansas state flag does carry a Confederate symbol: the single blue star positioned directly above the word “ARKANSAS” inside the white diamond was added by the legislature in 1923 to commemorate the state’s membership in the Confederate States of America. That designation is still written into Arkansas law, and the Arkansas flag Confederate star remains in place as of 2026, despite two legislative attempts to change it.

Which Star Is the Confederate One

Look at the center of the flag. The word “ARKANSAS” sits inside a white diamond, with four blue stars around it: one above the name and three below, forming an inverted triangle. The lone star on top is the Confederate commemorative star. The three below it have different meanings entirely.¹

How the Star Was Added

Arkansas adopted its flag in February 1913, using a design by Willie Kavanaugh Hocker that included only three blue stars inside the diamond, representing the three nations that governed the territory before statehood: France, Spain, and the United States.²³

Ten years later, in 1923, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a resolution adding a fourth blue star, explicitly designating it as a symbol of Arkansas’s membership in the Confederacy. The four stars were first arranged two above the name and two below.³

A 1924 special session rearranged them into the current configuration, placing the Confederate star alone at the top and the three original stars below. The same session also assigned a secondary meaning to the two stars flanking “ARKANSAS” below the name, declaring them a reference to Arkansas and Michigan being admitted to the Union within months of each other to maintain the free-state/slave-state balance in Congress. That characterization is slightly inaccurate: although an act of June 15, 1836, slated both states for admission, Michigan did not formally join until January 26, 1837. No official changes have been made to the flag since 1924.³

What the Rest of the Flag Means

The Arkansas Secretary of State’s office publishes the official symbolism for every element of the flag:

The red, white, and blue colors signify that Arkansas is one of the United States.
The white diamond represents Arkansas as the only diamond-producing state in the nation.
The 25 white stars on the blue border mark Arkansas as the 25th state admitted to the Union.
The three lower blue stars represent France, Spain, and the United States, and the fact that Arkansas was the third state created from the Louisiana Purchase.
The single upper blue star commemorates the Confederate States of America.¹

The 2019 Bill to Redefine the Star

In February 2019, Democratic state Representative Charles Blake of Little Rock introduced HB 1487. His bill would not have changed the flag’s physical appearance at all. Instead, it would have redesignated the upper star to commemorate “the heritage and contribution of the Quapaw, Osage, and Caddo tribes and the other Native American nations who inhabited Arkansas before France or Spain exercised dominion over Arkansas.”⁴

The Quapaw Nation backed the bill, and so did then-Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican. “It’s the right thing to do,” Hutchinson told the Associated Press. “I don’t know that we need to recognize Arkansas in a state of rebellion. I think we’d be better off recognizing those nations, from the Indian tribes to others, that we’ve been under.”⁵⁶

Even with the governor’s endorsement, HB 1487 died in the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee, failing on both a voice vote and a roll call vote on March 20, 2019. Blake argued at the hearing that the 1924 addition reflected the influence of the Ku Klux Klan rather than genuine reverence for Confederate soldiers, and called his bill a “course correction.” Opponents, including members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, called the effort an affront to history. Committee members who voted no framed their opposition around unity and the role of the legislature, with Representative Doug House arguing that lawmakers should not dictate how citizens interpret symbols.⁷

The 2021 Bill to Remove the Star

In March 2021, Democratic state Representative David Whitaker of Fayetteville filed HB 1790. His approach was different. Rather than reassigning the fourth star’s meaning, Whitaker proposed restoring the flag to Hocker’s original 1913 design: three stars in the diamond, with the Confederate star physically removed. The change would have taken effect on June 15, 2022.⁸

There is no public record of HB 1790 advancing through committee or receiving a vote.⁸

Why the Flag Still Hasn’t Changed

The flag is defined by state statute, not by the Arkansas Constitution, so a simple bill passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor would be enough to change it. Getting such a bill out of committee has been the obstacle.

The broader political direction in the state has not favored change. In April 2021, Arkansas enacted the State Capitol and Historical Monument Protection Act, which prohibits the removal, relocation, alteration, or renaming of any memorial on public property without a formal waiver process. As of 2020, Arkansas had 39 Confederate monuments across the state; one, a 112-year-old Confederate soldier statue on the Bentonville town square, was removed in September 2020, but the monument protection law has largely frozen further action.⁹

No legislation to change the Arkansas state flag has been introduced since 2021. The flag flies today exactly as it has since 1924, with the single blue star above “ARKANSAS” still officially designated as a tribute to the Confederacy.³

1
Arkansas Secretary of State. Arkansas Flag Protocol
2
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Willie Kavanaugh Hocker
3
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Official State Flag
4
KATV. Bill Would Strip Confederate Designation From Arkansas Flag Star
5
Arkansas Times. Quapaw Nation Applauds Governor’s Endorsement of Proposal to Change State Flag Symbolism
6
KARK. Arkansas Governor Backs Removing Confederate Link to Flag
7
Arkansas Times. House Committee Again Defeats Bill to Change Symbols on Arkansas Flag
8
NWA Homepage. NWA Lawmaker Files Bill to Remove Star From Arkansas Flag That Designates Confederacy
9
Axios. Input Sought on State’s New Monument Protection Law