Pan-African flag

Liberty League of Negro Americans Flag Inspiration

Marcus Garvey wanted to create a flag to fight back and promote racial pride.^[9] He was inspired by the 1917 flag of The Liberty League of Negro-Americans whose perpendicular tri color flag was black, brown, and yellow. These three colors were meant to symbolized the all the colors the people from Africa in America, and their relationship to their own people and other peoples of the world.^[10] He would later use this as inspiration for his 1920 Black Liberation Flag, changing the colors to black, red, and gold. Then finally the black, red, and green.^[11]

UNIA Flag Creation

The Black Liberation Flag was inspired by the Liberty League's flag, and in 1920 the UNIA created theirs because they wanted to unify the African American people in America and as a response "coon song" that became a hit around 1900, titled, "Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon".^[12][13] 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 was quoted as saying:^[14]

Show me the race or the nation without a flag, and I will show you a race of people without any pride. Aye! In song and mimicry they have said, "Every race has a flag but the coon." How true! Aye! But that was said of us four years ago. They can't say it now. ...

The Universal Negro Catechism, published by the UNIA in 1921, refers to the colors of the flag meaning:^[15]

Red is the color of the blood which men must shed for their redemption and liberty; black is the color of the noble and distinguished race to which we belong; green is the color of the luxuriant vegetation of our Motherland.

When the UNIA owned newspaper, the Negro World, held a competition in 1927 for why its readers considered themselves"Garveyites", many of the entries and winning entries said it was because the organization had a flag.^[16] The color red in many country flags is most often associated with bloodshed, which is also the symbolism used in the Pan African Flag by UNIA in 1920.^[17]

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.^[18]

The flag later became a Black Nationalist symbol for the worldwide liberation of Black people. As an emblem of Black pride, the flag became popular during the Black Liberation movement of the 1960s.

New Jersey School Board 1971-2026

Juneteenth

19 June 1865, is the date in which enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally received the news of their freedom. This is commemorated every 19 June with Juneteenth, which is considered the longest-running African American holiday. Many in the African American community have adopted the Pan-African flag to represent Juneteenth.^[23] The Juneteenth holiday became an official federal holiday 17 June 2021, and does have its own flag, however, created in 1997 – the Juneteenth flag.^[24]

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 in Ferguson, Missouri, a Howard University 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.^[25][26][27]

2020s usage

In February 2023, the Pan-African flag was flown over the Denver Federal Center to commemorate Black History Month, which was the first time that flag was flown over any federal building.^[28] In Martinique, a new flag was raised which symbolises the same ties to Africa.

Flags of nation states

• 
  Flag of Kenya
• 
  Flag of South Sudan
• 
  Flag of Malawi
• 
  Flag of Malawi (2010–2012)
• 
  Flag of Biafra (1967–1970)
• 
  Proposed flag for Angola (1996)
• 
  Flag of Azawad
• 
  Flag of Martinique

A number of flags of nation states in Africa and the Caribbean have been inspired by the UNIA flag. The Biafran flag is another variant of the UNIA flag with a sunburst in the center. Designed by the Biafran government and first raised in 1967, the colors are directly based on Garvey's design.^[29]

The flag of Malawi issued in 1964 is very similar and 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.^[30]

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.^[31]

The flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis 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.^[32]

Derivative flags in the United States