A campaign to replace Tulsa's vanilla flag is going strong.
Engagement is high for the largely social media–based campaign that began in November. Campaign leader Joey Wignarajah said several concepts are proving popular.
"About 34 percent though oil and the discovery of oil and the oil boom was something that was important to represent," Wignarajah said. "About 30 percent of the people wanted to recognize the role of the race riots in our history and in our present. People wanted to make sure we represented the geography of the city and the Tulsa sound."
The Council Oak, Tulsa's founding, Art Deco and Route 66 were also mentioned. A panel of experts will be tasked with narrowing the field after Thursday's submission deadline.
"Some of Tulsa's best creative types — designers, artists, art historians — and they will collectively work together to narrow down the over 250 submissions to the three top that we'll take out to Tulsans to vote on," Wignarajah said.
The public vote, likely via text message, should be in March. The campaign has reached 700,000 unique people through social media, and Wignarajah said they've strived to proportionately represent all Tulsans in the process.
"What we wanted to do was go out in a way via social media and other methods that would allow us to quantify to the council, to make an evidence-based case that this is the flag that the people want," Wignarajah said.
After the public chooses a winner, the city council and mayor must formally adopt the new flag to make it the official City of Tulsa flag.
Wignarajah said unlike the current flag, the new flag won't have copyright protection that prevents people from putting it on T-shirts, hats and other merchandise. The goal is to have a widely used flag, much like Chicago or Washington, D.C.
