After scrapping hated flag design, SC lawmakers settle on these two possibilities
After a first flag design was resoundingly rejected by South Carolinians across the state, lawmakers went back to the drawing board and approved two possible designs Tuesday.
The designs were approved as part of an effort to standardize South Carolina’s flag, something that hasn’t been done since the Legislature repealed part of the state code requiring an official design in 1940.
South Carolina currently does not have a standardized flag design, meaning flags spotted all over the state may be slightly different. For example, the flag flying over the State House dome and the flags inside of the House and Senate chambers are different.
Scott Malyerck, a member of the design committee, said the design differences are due to using different manufacturers and not having a standardized design for them to follow.
“The low bidder designs what our flag looks like,” Malyerck said Tuesday.
“I thought it was kind of careless to leave it to the low bidder.”
In 2018, lawmakers sought to standardize the flag, tasking a group of historians to come up with a design based on historical flags employed throughout South Carolina’s history. And in March 2020, that group came up with a design, which it delivered to lawmakers.
The original design used elements from the oldest surviving state flag: the 2nd South Carolina Regiment Flag sewn in 1776. Historians took the shape and design of the crescent and the original color, pantone 282C, from that flag. For the March 2020 design, historians also borrowed the palmetto tree from a sketch by Ellen Heyward Jervey that was used in the official flag design from 1910.
After releasing that design, lawmakers and designers alike received a massive wave of pushback.
“What they came up with was as close to accurate as they can find,” Sen. Ronnie Cromer, R-Newberry, said Tuesday. “However, when it was published in The State paper and the Post and Courier, we got all kinds of adverse comments.”
“That probably is the best symbol to accurately depict the history of the state flag. It just wont sell to the public when it goes out,” Cromer later added.
Most of the anger circled around the wispy palmetto tree in the design proposed in 2020. Some joked that the tree looked like it barely survived Hurricane Hugo, which ripped through South Carolina in 1989.
“I don’t think anyone is overly thrilled with the first flag,” S.C. Rep. Josh Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg, said Tuesday.
“We knew this would be the thing we had to deal with that there was bound be a great deal of angst over,” S.C. Department of Archives and History Director Eric Emerson said Tuesday.
Emerson said the task force’s goal was to choose a historically accurate design that looked most like a real palmetto tree. They wanted the trunk to have detail and the grass to be present under the tree. The final design was made in partnership with graphic designers at Clemson University.
“We perhaps and probably set too high a bar for the graphic communications department at Clemson,” Emerson said.
After being sent back to the drawing board, historians proposed two new designs Tuesday.
Both designs still use the original indigo blue, pantone 282C, and the original shape and proportions of the crescent used in the second state flag. In each design, the crescent still is at an angle, opening to the top left corner of the flag.
The first design suggestion considered by lawmakers Tuesday uses the trunk design and grass element from the Jervey sketch while also employing perkier, fuller palm fronds. The flag is most similar to the one used by the state in 1910, Emerson said.
The design of the fronds are more symmetrical, and Cromer pointed out that one is not likely to find a symmetrical palmetto tree in the wild.
The second design features jagged leaves around the trunk of the palmetto tree. The fronds on top of the tree are less symmetrical. A patch of grass is featured at the bottom of the trunk.
Emerson said this design hearkens back to the design used in the 1950s. The origins of the particular design, however, are unknown, according to the study committee’s report. It was thought to have been designed by a flag manufacturer.
“That tree got hit with the ugly stick,” Sen. Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter, said about the second design. “There’s no question about that.”
Lawmakers also toyed with choosing to go with the design of the flag currently flying on top of the State House dome, but ultimately took no action Tuesday to head in that direction.
Lawmakers acknowledged that, no matter what design they picked, some people would inevitably be unhappy with it.
“Once we say we adopt that, everyone’s going to say, ‘That’s the ugliest thing you’ve ever adopted,’ ” Cromer said.
Ultimately, the senators voted unanimously to approve both new designs and send them to the full Family and Veterans’ Services committee. They also discussed the possibility of approving both designs in committee and allowing the debate over them to play out on the Senate floor.
“That way, nobodies’ feelings would be hurt,” Cromer said.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 11:58 AM.
