Today is one of those "minor" holidays. No one gets the day off work because it's Flag Day and it's business as usual throughout the country. A few towns and cities across the nation have small parades or other community events to celebrate but it largely passes unnoticed by most Americans. Officially, Flag Day is the commemoration of the 1777 adoption of the United States Flag by the Continental Congress.

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We all know the story of Betsy Ross stitching the first flag (which may or may not be 100% true according to historians). But especially on Flag Day we should also remember another part of our flag's history. In 1767 the Sons of Liberty, an organization of American patriots, adopted their own flag of nine vertical stripes (5 red and 4 white). These stripes represented the nine colonies who attended the 1765 Stamp Act Congress which was the first organized American resistance to British rule. Many consider this Congress to be the genesis of our American government and that flag proudly represented the fact that, via their delegates, the people of those nine colonies stood up against what they believed was unfair.

As the years of the conflict went on, our flag was revised to include a stripe for all 13 colonies who had joined in the fight and 13 stars were added to represent them as well. As independence was won and our country grew, more stars were added - one for each new state admitted to the Union. But the number of stripes remains constant to this day. Throughout our history we have felt it important to honor those thirteen colonies whose people stood up for their rights. Not content to accept unfair taxation and to have their freedoms limited by a government they believed had gone too far, the people represented by those 13 stripes took risks we Americans today can hardly imagine so that their children and grandchildren and now all of us could have opportunities they did not.

And so on this Flag Day, let us take a moment to remember who those 13 stripes represent. They gave us a country we must protect from government tyranny and a flag to remind us of that solemn duty.