The Pan-African flag (also known as the Afro-American flag, Black Liberation flag, UNIA flag, and various other names) is a tri-color flag consisting of three equal horizontal bands of (from top down) red, black, and green. The

Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-African o ...

(UNIA-ACL) formally adopted it on August 13, 1920, in Article 39 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, during its month-long convention at

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...

in New York City. Variations of the flag can and have been used in various countries and territories in the Americas to represent Garveyist ideologies.

History

The flag was created in 1920 by members of UNIA in response to the "

coon song Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they we ...

", a late nineteenth century craze for songs that belittle and mock African Americans and imitated of stereotyped

AAVE African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...

speech, that became a hit around 1900 " Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon". This song has been cited as one of the three songs that "firmly established the term ''coon'' in the American vocabulary". In a 1927 report of a 1921 speech appearing in the '' Negro World'' weekly newspaper,

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...

was quoted as saying: The ''Universal Negro

Catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adul ...

'', published by the UNIA in 1921, refers to the colors of the flag meaning: Journalist Charles Mowbray White has asserted that Garvey proposed the colors red, black and green for the following reasons: "Garvey said red because of sympathy for the 'Reds of the world', and the Green their sympathy for the Irish in their fight for freedom, and the Black orthe Negro." According to the UNIA more recently, the three colors on the Black Nationalist flag represent: * red: the blood that unites all people of Black African ancestry, and shed for liberation; * black: black people whose existence as a nation, though not a nation-state, is affirmed by the existence of the flag; and * green: the abundant natural wealth of Africa. TexasBlackPowerFlag1A9574EE-E286-49D7-8418-190C17C207E3

TexasBlackPowerFlag1A9574EE-E286-49D7-8418-190C17C207E3

The flag later became a Black Nationalist symbol for the worldwide liberation of Black people. As an emblem of

Black pride Black Pride in the United States is a movement which encourages black people to celebrate African-American culture and embrace their African heritage. In the United States, it was a direct response to white racism especially during the Civi ...

, the flag became popular during the Black Liberation movement of the 1960s. In 1971, the school board of

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...

, passed a resolution permitting the flag to be raised in public school classrooms. Four of the board's nine members were not present at the time, and the resolution was introduced by the board's teen member, a mayoral appointee. Fierce controversy ensued, including a court order that the board show cause why they should not be forced to rescind the resolution, and at least two state legislative proposals to ban

ethnic flag An ethnic flag is a flag that symbolizes a certain ethnic group. Ethnic flags are often introduced to the ethnic community through the respective cultural or political ethnic movements. They are popular among diasporas, ethnic minorities, and some ...

s and national flags (other than the U.S. flag) in public classrooms. In the United States, the flag is currently widely available through flag shops or ethnic specialty stores. It is commonly seen at parades commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day,

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...

rallies, and other special events.

Juneteenth holiday

June 19, 1865. Commemorates the date in which enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally received the news of their freedom. Freedom came two and half years after the signing of the emancipation proclamation. It is considered the longest-running African American holiday. Many in the

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

community have adopted the Pan-African flag to represent

Juneteenth Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining "June" and "nineteenth", it is celebrated on the anniversary of General Order No. 3, i ...

. The Juneteenth holiday became an official federal holiday June 17, 2021 and does have its own flag however, created in 1997.

2010s usage

In the United States, following the refusal of a grand jury to indict a police officer in the August 9, 2014

shooting of Michael Brown On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson, who later stated that Brow ...

in Ferguson, Missouri, a

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

student replaced the U.S. flag on that school's Washington, D.C. campus flagpole with a "black solidarity" flag (this tricolor) flying at half-mast.

Derivative flags

Flags of nation states

File:Flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis.svg,

Flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis The flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis consists of a yellow-edged black band containing two white stars that divides diagonally from the lower hoist-side corner, with a green upper triangle and red lower triangle. Adopted in 1983 to replace the fl ...

File:Flag of Kenya.svg, Flag of Kenya File:Flag of South Sudan.svg, Flag of South Sudan File:Flag of Malawi.svg,

Flag of Malawi The flag of Malawi (Chichewa: ''mbendera ya Malaŵi'') was officially adopted on 6 July 1964 when the colony of Nyasaland became independent from British rule and renamed itself Malawi. Design The first flag of independent Malawi was adopted o ...

File:Flag of Malawi (2010-2012).svg, Flag of Malawi (2010–2012) File:Flag of Biafra.svg, Flag of Biafra (1967-1970) File:Proposed Flag of Angola (1996).svg, Proposed flag for

Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordinat ...

(1996) File:Flag of Libya.svg, Flag of Libya File:MNLA flag.svg,

Flag of Azawad The flag of the State of Azawad, an unrecognized state that declared independence from Mali on 6 April 2012, is a horizontal green-red-black tricolour with a yellow triangle at the hoist. The symbolism behind colours to the Azawadi people are ma ...

A number of flags of nation states in African and the Caribbean have been inspired by the UNIA flag. The

Biafra Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo-populated f ...

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

is another variant of the UNIA flag with a

sunburst A sunburst is a design or figure commonly used in architectural ornaments and design patterns and possibly pattern books. It consists of rays or "beams" radiating out from a central disk in the manner of sunbeams. Sometimes part of a sunburs ...

in the center. Designed by the Biafran government and first raised in 1967, the colors are directly based on Garvey's design. The

flag of Malawi The flag of Malawi (Chichewa: ''mbendera ya Malaŵi'') was officially adopted on 6 July 1964 when the colony of Nyasaland became independent from British rule and renamed itself Malawi. Design The first flag of independent Malawi was adopted o ...

issued in 1964 is very similar, reflects the Black Nationalist flag's order of stripes. It is not directly based on Garvey's flag, although the colors have the same symbolism: Red for blood symbolizing the struggle of the people, green for vegetation, and black for the race of the people. The Kenyan flag (Swahili: Bendera ya Kenya) is a tricolor of black, red, and green with two white fimbriations imposed, with a Masai shield and two crossed spears. It was officially adopted on 12 December 1963 after Kenya's independence, inspired by the pan-African tricolour. The

flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis The flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis consists of a yellow-edged black band containing two white stars that divides diagonally from the lower hoist-side corner, with a green upper triangle and red lower triangle. Adopted in 1983 to replace the fl ...

has similar colors, arranged diagonally and separated by yellow lines. It similar to the Malawian flag in that the colors are not directly taken from the Pan-African flag but the symbolism is the same.

Derivative flags in the United States

RNA Flag 08I09.svg, Flag of the

Republic of New Afrika The Republic of New Afrika (RNA), founded in 1968 as the Republic of New Africa (RNA), is a black nationalist organization and black separatist movement in the United States popularized by black militant groups. The larger New Afrika movement ...

In response to the controversy over the flying of the Confederate

, an African American-run company called NuSouth created a flag based on the Confederate naval jack, with the white stars and saltire outline replaced by green and the blue saltire made black.

The Kwanzaa Bendera

In the 1960s The Us Organization redesigned the UNIA flag also changing order and significance of the colours to: black, red and green. Defining "black" for the people, "red" for struggle, and "green" for the future built "out of struggle".

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...

issued a stamp in 1997 to commemorate the African-American festival of Kwanzaa with a painting by artist Synthia Saint James of a dark-skinned family wearing garments traditional in parts of Africa and fashionable for special occasions among African-Americans. The family members are holding food, gifts, and a flag. The flag in the stamp may have been meant to represent the Pan-African flag but instead used the similar flag (a black, red, and green horizontal tricolour) of the Black nationalist organisation

Us Organization US Organization, or Organization Us, is a Black nationalist group in the United States founded in 1965. It was established as a community organization by Hakim Jamal together with Maulana Karenga. It was a rival to the Black Panther Party in Cali ...

, which shares its founder, professor and activist

Maulana Karenga Maulana Ndabezitha Karenga (born Ronald McKinley Everett, July 14, 1941), previously known as Ron Karenga, is an American activist, author, and professor of Africana studies, best known as the creator of the pan-African and African-American holi ...

, with Kwanzaa. The ''bendera'' (flag in the Kiswahili language) was documented as an supplemental symbol of Kwanzaa, in Karenga's 1998 book ''The African American Holiday of Kwanzaa'', and included in ceremonial use during the festival.

Artworks

In 1990, artist David Hammons created a work called ''

African-American Flag ''Untitled (African-American Flag)'' is a vexillographic artwork by David Hammons from 1990, combining the colors of the Pan-African flag with the pattern of the flag of the United States to represent African American identity. It was first cre ...

'', which is held by the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

in New York City. Based on the standard U.S. flag, its stripes are black and red, the canton field is green, and the stars on the canton field are black. African America Flag.svg, David Hammons' ''

'' Hammons flag.jpg, ''

African American Flag ''Untitled (African-American Flag)'' is a vexillographic artwork by David Hammons from 1990, combining the colors of the Pan-African flag with the pattern of the flag of the United States to represent African American identity. It was first cre ...

'' in New York city

Alternative names

The flag goes by several other names with varying degrees of popularity: *the Afro-American flag *the Bendera Ya Taifa ( Kiswahili for "flag of the Nation"), in reference to its usage during Kwanzaa *the Black Liberation flag *the International African flag *the Marcus Garvey flag *the UNIA flag, after its originators *the Universal African flag *the Red Black Green (RBG) flag *the Black Nationalist flag

Proposed holiday

In 1999, an article appeared in the July 25 edition of ''

The Black World Today The Black World Today was a communicative website founded in July 1996 by Don Rojas (former press secretary to Maurice Bishop), with Herb Boyd as managing editor. The website is now defunct.Todd S. BurroughsDrums in the Global Village./ref> The s ...

'' suggesting that, as an act of global solidarity, every August 17 should be celebrated worldwide as Universal African Flag Day by flying the red, black, and green banner. August 17 is the birthday of

Notes

References

*"Black Flag", unattributed article in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine, December 13, 1971.

External links

Afro-American flags
at Flags of the World non-commercial vexillology site
Sheet music
from the American Memory website of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

'Fly the Red, Black, and Green'
article proposing holiday at ''The Black World Today'', July 25, 1999

U.S. postage depicting similar flag, with explanatory press release

an educational exercise based on David Hammons' ''African-American Flag''
UNIA official website
*Nusout
website
an
flag
{{Pan-Africanism Ethnic flags Flags of international organizations African and Black nationalism Pan-Africanism Flags introduced in 1920 Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League