Flag of Minnesota: Redesign, New Seal, and Controversy

The Minnesota state flag is a two-tone blue banner adopted on May 11, 2024, featuring a dark blue, stylized outline of the state on the hoist side containing a white eight-pointed star, set against a bright blue field. It replaced a design dating to 1893 that centered on the state seal, and the switch was driven by longstanding objections to seal imagery depicting the displacement of Native people. The new flag is codified at Minnesota Statutes Section 1.141.¹

What the Current Flag Looks Like

The design uses only three colors and no text. On the hoist side, a dark blue shape in the stylized outline of Minnesota holds a white, eight-pointed star with one point directed north. The rest of the flag is a solid bright blue field.²

Each element has an official meaning:

The dark blue shape represents the land of Minnesota.
The white eight-pointed star represents the North Star, referencing the state motto “L’Étoile du Nord.” Its form mirrors the Cass Gilbert-designed star inlaid in the State Capitol Rotunda floor, and from certain angles it suggests the letter “M.” Vexillology consultant Ted Kaye described the star as functioning simultaneously as a compass rose, a rotated Dakota Star honoring the Native American community, and an initial.²³
The bright blue field represents water: Minnesota’s lakes, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, Lake Superior, and the start of the Great Lakes Basin.²

The motto “L’Étoile du Nord” is no longer written out on the flag; its meaning is carried by the star alone.⁴ The absence of text or a seal, along with the limited palette, aligns the design with the North American Vexillological Association’s principles for effective flags.³

Why Minnesota Changed Its Flag

The previous flag, adopted in 1893 and revised in 1957 and 1983, placed the Great Seal of Minnesota at its center. The seal showed a white farmer plowing land with a rifle leaning on a nearby stump, while a spear-wielding Native American rode off into a setting sun. Civil rights activists had objected to the imagery as far back as 1968.⁵

Critics pointed to a poem by Mary Eastman, wife of the seal’s original designer, that included the lines “Give way, give way, young warrior / Thou and thy steed give way; … The white man claims them now,” as evidence the design was an explicit celebration of Indigenous dispossession.⁶ Dakota and Ojibwe communities in Minnesota identified the imagery as offensive, arguing it suggested that “Indigenous people were defeated and going away, while whites won and were staying.”⁷ A 1983 statutory tweak that redefined the direction the Native American figure was riding did not resolve the underlying objection.⁸

Flag-design experts raised a separate complaint: the old flag was overly complex and nearly indistinguishable from more than a dozen other state flags that placed a seal on a blue background.⁷

How the Redesign Happened

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature created the State Emblems Redesign Commission under Laws of Minnesota, 2023, Chapter 62, Article 2, Section 118. The commission was charged with developing new designs for both the flag and the Great Seal that would “accurately and respectfully reflect Minnesota’s shared history, resources, and diverse cultural communities.” Designs representing only a single person or community were prohibited.⁹

The thirteen-member voting commission, chaired by Luis Fitch of the Minnesota Council on Latino Affairs, first met on September 5, 2023, and had until January 1, 2024, to certify its adopted designs. Over 18 meetings, members reviewed 2,128 flag submissions and 399 seal submissions. The flag concept was selected on December 15, 2023, with final modifications adopted on December 19, and the commission expired on December 29, 2023, upon submitting its report.¹⁰

The Designer

The winning concept came from Andrew Prekker, a 24-year-old resident of Luverne, Minnesota, who described himself as a part-time graphic designer.¹¹¹² Prekker said he had begun working on flag concepts before the commission existed, drawing inspiration from the state flags of New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Arizona, and iterating through more than 50 variations. He said he wanted a design “inclusive to every single Minnesotan, irregardless of ethnicity, of political background.”¹³

His original submission included tri-color stripes of white, green, and light blue along with a different star. The commission removed the stripes in favor of a solid bright blue field, dropped the green, and replaced the star with the eight-pointed Capitol Rotunda version. Ted Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association, had recommended simplifying the stripes out and strengthening the star’s points.²³

Adoption

Both the new flag and seal became effective on May 11, 2024, the 165th anniversary of Minnesota’s statehood.¹⁴ Section 1.141 of the Minnesota Statutes states that the design certified by the commission’s report “is adopted as the official state flag” and requires it to fly on the State Capitol grounds between sunrise and sunset.¹

The New State Seal

The same commission produced a new Great Seal, adopted the same day. Based on a concept by Ross Bruggink, co-founder of the branding firm Buddy-Buddy Design, the seal depicts a common loon amid wild rice, with Norway Pine trees, a stylized representation of water, and a white four-pointed star. An outer ring carries 98 rectangular golden bars representing the state’s 87 counties and 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes. The commission replaced the French motto with the Dakota phrase “Mni Sóta Makoce,” meaning “Land of the sky tinted water.”¹⁵¹⁶

Controversy and Cities Flying the Old Flag

Reaction to the new flag has split sharply. Supporters marked the debut with “Statehood Day” parties, and Secretary of State Steve Simon called the switch a “useful and positive pivot point” to symbols that “represent all of us.”⁵ Columbia Heights Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula issued a 2026 proclamation reaffirming her city’s use of the new flag, saying the old design “celebrated the displacement of Indigenous people.”¹⁷

Critics have pushed back on multiple fronts. Republican commission member Bjorn Olson said the public should have been allowed to vote on the design.⁵ Representative Ron Kresha coauthored nine bills in 2024 aimed at repealing the flag or putting it on a statewide ballot.¹⁸ Secretary Simon noted that Minnesota is not an initiative-and-referendum state, so a statewide vote would require a constitutional amendment.¹⁹ A Change.org petition seeking to reinstate the old flag has collected over 10,000 signatures.²⁰

A recurring criticism has been that the new flag resembles the national flag of Somalia or the flag of its Puntland region. Officials and fact-checkers have called the comparison inaccurate, noting that the Somali flag features a solid light blue field with a centered five-pointed white star, a substantially different layout. The commission removed tri-color stripes from an earlier draft partly to avoid such comparisons.²¹ U.S. Representative Tom Emmer has characterized the new design as “woke,” and at the Minnesota Republican Party’s state convention in June 2026, Emmer presented a video showing an image of the new flag “bursting into flames.”¹⁷

State law does not require municipalities to fly the state flag, and a growing number of cities have used that discretion to keep the retired 1983 version aloft. As of mid-2026, at least 15 cities had voted to fly the old flag, with 13 of those votes occurring since the start of 2026.²²²³²⁴²⁵ At least five counties have formally condemned the new design.¹⁹ Other communities have improvised: Itasca County flies the old and new flags on separate poles, and Detroit Lakes voted to fly no state flag at all.¹⁷

DFL Representative Mike Freiberg introduced HF 5077, which proposed a 10% cut to local government aid for cities that fly the old flag. The bill received a hearing in the House Taxes Committee but had no Senate companion, and House Speaker Lisa Demuth said it had “no path forward.” Freiberg acknowledged the bill was not intended to pass, describing it as a way to raise awareness.²⁶²² Despite the opposition, no legislative repeal effort has gained traction, and the two-tone blue flag with the white eight-pointed star remains the official state flag of Minnesota.²⁷

1
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Section 1.141
2
Minnesota Secretary of State. State Flag
3
Star Tribune. What’s a Design Expert’s Verdict on Minnesota’s New State Flag
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CBS News Minnesota. Why Is Minnesota the North Star State
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NPR. Minnesota’s New State Flag Is Drawing Mixed Reactions
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MinnPost. Let’s Talk About Our Racist and Ugly State Flag
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Cherokee Phoenix. Minnesota Seeks Unifying Symbol to Replace State Flag
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CBS News Minnesota. Minnesota State Flag History
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Minnesota Secretary of State. State Emblem Redesign Commission Report
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Minnesota Historical Society. State Emblems Redesign Commission
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PBS. New State Flag Designer
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Dakota News Now. Luverne Resident’s Design Is Finalist for New Minnesota State Flag
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MPR News. Minnesota State Flag Redesign Finalists: Luverne Designer
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Minnesota House of Representatives. State Emblems Redesign Legislation
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Minnesota Secretary of State. State Seal
16
MSP Magazine. Minnesota Has a New State Seal
17
MinnPost. Let’s Fly the New Minnesota Flag — Or Not — Or the Old One Too
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Minnesota House of Representatives. Rep. Ron Kresha News
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Post-Bulletin. We’re Not Taking It Down, Minnesota GOP Chair Says About Old State Flag
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Alpha News. Petition to Reinstate Minnesota’s Original State Flag Reaches 10K Signatures
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PBS NewsHour. What to Know About Minnesota’s New State Flag and Seal
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MPR News. Why Some Cities Are Not Flying Minnesota’s Official State Flag
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MPR News. Elk River Votes to Keep Flying Retired Minnesota State Flag
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CBS News Minnesota. Elk River to Fly Old State Flag
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Valley News Live. Minnesota’s New State Flag Faces Pushback as Some Cities Revert to Old Design
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KTTC. House Bill Introduced to Penalize Minnesota Cities Not Flying Current State Flag
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KTTC. Two Years Later: Exploring Elements of Minnesota’s Revised State Flag