LOUISIANA CREOLE FLAG
Pete Bergeron designed the Louisiana Creole flag in 1987 and, in 1995, the Lafayette-based organization C.R.E.O.L.E., Inc., a heritage preservation group, adopted the flag to represent the cultural and ethnic diversity of Creole Louisiana. Dolores Kay Conque, Bergeron’s sister, hand-stitched the first Creole flag.
The upper left section, a white fleur de lis on a blue field, represents Louisiana’s French heritage. On the lower left and upper right sections, West African heritage is represented, respectively, by the flags of Mali and Senegal. Spanish colonial heritage is depicted by the Tower of Castille — a gold tower on a red field — positioned at the lower right section of the flag. A white cross dividing the four quadrants serves as a symbol of religion in the region.
Historically, Louisiana Creoles share deep cultural and kinship ties not only with Mediterranean Europeans, West Africans and Native Americans, but, as well, with the people of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
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