From [HERE] Baltimore, Maryland based Benjamin Youngsavage posted a thread about his state flag on Twitter to offer some context for it’s creation. 

He explains that the flag is half composed of a Confederate symbol. Marylanders who supported the confederacy, many who fought along side General Robert E. Lee, adopted the Crossland banner.

He points out that the Crossland banner–the red-and-white flag-within-the-flag–was adopted by Marylanders who hoped to secede.

While the yellow-and-black flag represents Lord Baltimore, his Calvert family, and state solidarity, the red-and-white Crossland banner represented the opposition.

According to the Maryland Secretary of State’s website, the red-and-white Crossland design were seen as “secession colors” that were used to both resist the ideas of Lincoln and the Union.

“Maryland-born Confederate soldiers used both the red-and-white colors and the cross bottony design from the Crossland quadrants of the Calvert coat of arms as a unique way of identifying their place of birth,” the Secretary Of State notes, suggesting the merger of the two as a “reconciliation.”

Because of these Civil War ties, the flag has apparently been appropriated by white supremacists to subtly display racist points of view.

Youngsavage tweets that the state flag is sometimes flown upside down— in defiance of state protocol–as a symbol of hate. Others will simply fly the Crossland banner on its own.

As The Baltimore Sun's Jon Morgan wrote in 1997, the red-and-white aspect of the flag represents a state specific version of the Confederate flag.

The state’s relationship with the Confederacy is complicated. It didn’t phase out Confederate flag license plates until late 2015. The state has had a rash of debates over the flying of the Confederate flag and its alternatives. There's even a local country where a variation of the Crossland banner is their flag.

Symbols like the Maryland flag are a reminder that symbols of racism exist openly, without anyone’s knowledge.

Unfortunately Maryland isn’t the only flag that has this unfortunate connection: seven other states have more direct ties to the confederacy and are seen as variations of the symbol.

As the Washington Post reported in 2015 while the debate over South Carolina's flying of the stars and bars raged, states like Alabama and Florida still directly reference state-level Confederate battle flags, while Georgia, Arkansas, and North Carolina nod to each state's past Confederate affiliations. Mississippi still incorporates the full Confederate battle flag within its state banner. [MORE]