Alabama State Colors | Crimson White

Alabama's state flag — a crimson St. Andrew's cross on a white field — is the only official Alabama document that establishes crimson and white as state colors. The 1895 flag act names them: crimson for the cross, white for the field. The official Alabama state symbols list includes the flag; a standalone 'state colors' entry does not appear.

The flag act specifies the color name but not the shade. No Pantone number, CMYK value, or hex code appears in the statute, which is why no two reproductions of the flag match exactly.

Crimson and white are Alabama's flag colors. A separate official state-colors designation — the kind passed by a distinct legislative act — does not appear in official Alabama sources reviewed here. The Alabama Department of Archives and History symbol listing includes the flag but not a standalone colors entry. NETSTATE, which tracks state color designations across all fifty states, lists Alabama's official state colors as 'None.'

Some states have passed a separate act designating official state colors, while others only define colors as part of a flag or seal. Alabama belongs to the second group. Crimson and white function as Alabama's de facto colors through the flag and University of Alabama athletics, not through a separate state-colors law.

The University of Alabama adopted crimson and white as its official athletic colors, and decades of nationally televised football have embedded those colors in Alabama's public image far beyond the state flag. Many sources write 'Alabama's colors are crimson and white' without distinguishing between the 1895 flag, the university's athletic brand, and a formal state designation — because in practice all three point to the same two colors.

Alabama State University, a separate institution in Montgomery, uses different colors entirely. Searches mixing up 'Alabama State' and 'University of Alabama' add a second layer of color confusion that has nothing to do with the state's official symbols.