Please be advised that all United States flags should be lowered to half-staff to honor former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who has died. Flags should be at half-staff March 23-27, 2022.
Read the proclamation of President Joe Biden.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
NPR reports “Madeleine Albright, the first woman to be U.S. secretary of state, has died, according to a statement from her family.
Albright was 84, and the cause of death was cancer, her family said.
“She was surrounded by family and friends. We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend,” the statement said.
She served as secretary of state from 1997 to 2001 during the Clinton administration.
“Hillary and I are profoundly saddened by the passing of Madeleine Albright. She was one of the finest secretaries of state, an outstanding UN ambassador, a brilliant professor, and an extraordinary human being,” former President Bill Clinton said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “Few leaders have been so perfectly suited for the times in which they served.”
Albright was born in what was then Czechoslovakia and fled with her family after the Nazis occupied the country in 1939.
Albright’s father Josef was part of the Czechoslovak Foreign Service and became ambassador to Yugoslavia, according to a biography from the State Department’s Office of the Historian.
President Biden commented on the challenges Albright faced as a young woman.
“She was an immigrant fleeing persecution. A refugee in need of safe haven. And like so many before her — and after — she was proudly American. To make this country that she loved even better — she defied convention and broke barriers again and again,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday. “Madeleine was always a force for goodness, grace, and decency—and for freedom.”
Flag Code
“The flag, when flown at half-staff, should be first hoisted to the peak for an instant and then lowered to the half-staff position. The flag should be again raised to the peak before it is lowered for the day. […] The flag shall be flown at half-staff 30 days from the death of the President or a former President; 10 days from the day of death of the Vice President, the Chief Justice or a retired Chief Justice of the United States, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives; from the day of death until interment of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a Secretary of an executive or military department, a former Vice President, or the Governor of a State, territory, or possession; and on the day of death and the following day for a Member of Congress.”
As a reminder, when the U.S. flag is flown at half-staff or half-mast, it should first be raised to the top for a an instant, then immediately lowered to the half-staff or half-mast position. Prior to lowering the flag it should be raised once more to the peak, then lowered.
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