Dread Scott and the Flag on the Floor
An installation that reached the Senate and the Supreme Court
Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Dread Scott's 1989 installation invited viewers to stand on a U.S. flag to write in a ledger, provoking national outrage, a Senate vote, and a chain of events leading to the Supreme Court's affirmation that flag desecration is protected speech.
Exhibited while Scott was still an art student, 'What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?' placed a flag on the gallery floor beneath a ledger, so that writing in it meant standing on the flag. Veterans protested, President George H. W. Bush called it 'disgraceful', and the Senate passed legislation in response.
The controversy fed directly into the Supreme Court cases that struck down flag-desecration laws as violations of the First Amendment. It remains a touchstone for the collision between patriotic feeling and free expression in American art.