Three vertical bands, red, white, blue, and at the center a shield bearing CLEVELAND, the date 1796 and the motto "PROGRESS & PROSPERITY". Cleveland's flag is direct, almost brutal in its clarity, like the city itself. No complex allegory. No esoteric symbols. Just a name, a date, and two words of programme.
Cleveland was born on the shores of Lake Erie in 1796. Throughout the 19th century, it became one of the first industrial cities in America. Steel, oil refining (John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil here in 1870), automobile production, Cleveland was the engine of the national economy. At the start of the 20th century, it was the fifth largest American city.
The deindustrialization of the 1960s-80s hit Cleveland hard. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River, so polluted that it caught fire, became the shameful symbol of an industrial America poisoning its environment. This river fire shocked public opinion and contributed directly to the creation of the EPA and the Clean Water Act.
Cleveland is also the city that claimed rock 'n' roll as its own. It was here that DJ Alan Freed coined the expression "rock and roll" in 1951. It was here that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in 1995. In 2016, LeBron James's Cavaliers won the first NBA title in the city's history. Cleveland does not give up. Its flag proclaims it.