Since the nation's founding, the American flag has been widely recognized as a symbol of distress, as sailors turned the American flag upside down to signal that their ship was sinking, on fire, or trapped in ice.
But over time, the upside-down American flag became a symbol frequently brandished by protesters across political lines to show that they believed the country itself was in grave danger. Ta.
After President Biden won the 2020 election, Supporter of former President Donald. J. Trump rallied behind the upside-down flag, displaying it in his home, on his car and on social media to show he believed Trump's lie that the election was stolen. Some began doing so before votes were counted.
The practice has now become a national topic after The New York Times reported Thursday that it had recently obtained images of an upside-down flag flying outside Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s home in Alexandria, Virginia, in January. It becomes. 2021. At the time, the Supreme Court was still debating whether to hear the 2020 election case.
Justice Alito said in an email to the Times that he had “no involvement whatsoever in raising the flag.”
“This was posted by Mrs. Alito for a short period of time in response to a neighbor's use of offensive and personally insulting language on a sign in her yard,” he said, referring to his wife, Martha Ann Alito. wrote.
In the past, people used to raise an upside-down flag at sea to call for help.
Before it became a symbol of political protest, flying the flag upside down was one of the only ways for sailors to call for help.
According to , the custom probably began in the British Isles in the 17th century, probably during the Anglo-Dutch War. The North American Vexilological Association is a group dedicated to the study of national flags.
Ted Kaye, the association's executive director, said he has seen 18th-century American flags flying upside down on lifeboats and ice-bound New England whalers. “This was the easiest way to send out a distress signal without having a special flag,” Kaye said. “A distress signal is the most urgent signal you want to send from a ship.”
That meaning is reflected in the United States Flag Code, the official guidelines for the national flag first published in the 1920s. It states: “Flags should not be lowered and raised by trade unions except to indicate dire suffering in extreme danger to life or property.''
This tournament continued for decades. In 1974, a 67-year-old clam hunter named Julius Novikis successfully raised an upside-down flag and summoned a police helicopter after suffering a stroke on a barren island off the coast of Long Island's Nassau County.
It has been used to protest slavery and the Vietnam War.
The upside-down flag also has a long history as a political symbol.
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau stood on stage with Sojourner Truth and William Lloyd Garrison under an upside-down American flag and delivered a scathing anti-slavery speech. Garrison held up a copy of the Constitution and set it on fire in response to jeers and groans from the public. According to Laura Dassow Walls' “Henry David Thoreau: A Life,'' the audience says:
In the 1960s and 1970s, protesters carried the flag upside down as a symbol of opposition to the Vietnam War, said Mark Leepson, author of “The Flag: An American Biography.'' Some people have sent a more subtle anti-war message by pasting the national flag stamp upside down on their letters.
Sometimes there was a backlash.
John F. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran turned antiwar activist who went on to become a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, presidential candidate, and secretary of state, published a book called The New Man during his first campaign for Congress in 1972. It was violently attacked for publication. The cover, titled “Soldier,” featured a group of bearded veterans holding an American flag upside down.
Kerry's parliamentary campaign sought to explain the flag's status as an international distress signal. He lost that election.
Robert Justin Goldstein, professor emeritus of political science at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, said that before the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that burning the American flag was protected by the First Amendment. He said the American was charged with holding the national flag upside down.
This was considered a desecration of the national flag.
In recent years, upside-down flags have been flown by Tea Party activists opposing President Barack Obama's re-election and by demonstrators after the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. There is. 2014. In 2020, an Associated Press photo of protesters holding an American flag upside down next to a burning building in Minneapolis circulated widely, capturing the fire and anger in the city after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police officers.
It has now been linked to the “Stop the Steal” movement, which denies President Donald Trump's 2020 defeat.
Alex Newhouse, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, said the upside-down flag became more established in 2020 as a symbol for Trump supporters who deny the legitimacy of Biden's victory.
“This is very common in the MAGA community and the QAnon community,” he said. “In 2020, 'Stop the Steal' became popular among his hardcore MAGA associates in the ecosystem.”
Matthew Guthere, a professor of African and American studies at Brown University, said that flying the national flag upside down “seems to be part of a bipartisan symbolic environment, especially on the right, to symbolize the impending death of the nation.” ” he said. And then there was the call to arms. ”
Other symbols include a thin blue line flag, a pro-police symbol and a Punisher skull inspired by the cartoon vigilante group.
“If a small Navy boat were to fly the national flag upside down, people would probably prepare for disaster and rush to help,” he said in an email. “But the meaning of things is also troubling. Once this flag is associated with a right-wing call to arms, it is likely to stick around for a long time.”
jody canter contributed reports and alain draquelier Contributed to research.
