Jerry Esters proudly hoists the American flag every day outside his Detroit home. Just a short distance away, Yvonne Pistochini says there is absolutely no circumstance under which she would display the Stars and Stripes where she lives.
Both are Black.
For Esters, the flag represents the doors of opportunity that allowed a great-great-grandson of enslaved people to build a successful life. Pistochini, 79, says simply that the America the flag represents is not the country she witnessed growing up.
A new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, released ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday, reveals that Americans’ feelings about the flag are sharply divided along lines of politics, age, and race.
Republicans and older white adults are among the most likely groups to say they fly the flag, while younger Democrats and Black adults are among those most likely to say they never display it. These attitudes toward the flag — including whether it serves as a unifying or divisive symbol — reflect the broader, deep fault lines that exist in how Americans view their country’s history and achievements.
“A lot of Black Americans see the flag as a symbol of both inclusion and exclusion,” said Matthew Delmont, a professor of American history at Dartmouth College. “Black Americans, more so than white Americans, also understand the flag can be used to justify a version of patriotism that is rooted in exclusion, with the flag being used to say ‘you don’t belong here.’”
The poll surveyed 2,596 adults between April 16 and April 20. Results indicate that older white Americans — particularly those who identify as Republican — are more inclined to view the flag as a unifying symbol.
Roughly half of American adults said they display the flag at home for most of the year or at least during holidays. Around 7 in 10 Republicans and about 6 in 10 Americans aged 60 and older say they fly it at minimum during holidays.
By contrast, approximately 6 in 10 Democrats and independents say they “never” fly the U.S. flag. That figure climbs to 75% among Democrats under the age of 45.
Esters, a 64-year-old retired clay sculptor who worked for a Detroit automaker, flies three American flags outside his home on the city’s west side.
“When these homes were built, Black men like me, my mother and my family … we couldn’t even buy these homes,” he said. “To me, that’s one reason I fly the flag. We went through a lot to be able to own nice homes, and this is what we fought for.”
He also flies the flag in honor of Moriah Martin, his great-great-grandmother, who was born into slavery.
“I’m kind of living out her dreams — what I did for a living, having a business, having a nice home,” he said. “I think that’s the American way, but we got to fight for it and we, as Blacks, fought for it.”
According to the survey, Esters represents a minority viewpoint among Black adults. Only about 3 in 10 Black adults say they ever display the American flag, compared with roughly half of white and Hispanic adults.
Pistochini says today’s political divisions, unequal opportunities for people of color and the poor, and ongoing inequality are not what she believes the flag should represent. She also pushed back on the idea that flying a flag equals patriotism.
“Just because you fly a flag doesn’t make you a patriot,” Pistochini said. “If there was patriotism, we would not have all this. We can’t look at (what’s going on) and say this is America.”
Ben Gaskins, who chairs the political science department at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, says the flag holds deep personal meaning for many Americans.
“It is those who are older people, who are white and people who are more conservative,” Gaskins said. “They take it as more central to their identity.”
Nancy Hansen, a 73-year-old retired Customs and Border Protection clerk from Culvertson, Montana, says she believes “you have to be for the country, no matter what” and that the flag means “freedom” to her.
“Freedom to live where we want to live, travel where we want to travel, raise our kids where we want to raise our kids,” said Hansen, who is white and identifies as Republican.
Each year around July 4th, the American Legion places flags outside homes and businesses in Culvertson, including outside Hansen’s home.
Linda and Greg Cunningham, a white conservative couple from Pontiac, Michigan, are going all out this summer. The outside of their home, located northwest of Detroit, is decorated in red, white, and blue, with an American flag flying atop a pole just steps from their front door.
“It’s no political thing, at all,” said Linda Cunningham, 63. “It’s our freedom. I love the American flag. I love the whole concept of it. I love America. I know there’s so much going on in the world, right now, and I know everyone has their own views, and I’m just sad that politics have to be brought into the flag.”
Among those who participated in the survey, 47% described the flag as a “more unifying” symbol. About 16% called it “more divisive,” while 36% said it was neither.
Only 22% of Black adults view the flag as a unifying symbol, compared with 55% of white adults and 42% of Hispanic adults.
“It’s a painful symbol. It’s a reminder of what we could be and how it’s failed to live up to that for Black people, for Indigenous people and people of color,” said Allison Wiltz, a Black author and founder of Writers and Editors of Color.
Paul Walthour, 71, occasionally flies the flag at his Minneapolis-area home on special occasions and holidays. He says when he’s at his cabin away from home, the flag goes up each morning and comes down at the end of the day.
“This is antiquated, perhaps,” said Walthour, who is white and a retired advertising agency creative director. “I feel it’s a symbol that you’re proud to be an American.”
Still, he added: “Unfortunately, I kind of think it’s kind of a symbol of dividing more than uniting. The people who fly it on the far right have one kind of feeling about it, and the people who fly it on the left have a different kind of feeling about it.”
The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
