Tales of History,
Have you ever noticed that ALOT of the flags of African nations are very similar? This is not by accident. In this video, we discuss the origins of the Pan-African Flag...
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Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest Revision- March 7, 2022
This pancocojams post showases examples of how the green, gold, red, and black colors of pan-African flag have been used in the African Diaspora.
This post also showcases examples of the red, black, and green flag that is also considered a pan-African flag.
The content of this post is presented for historical,cultural, and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/03/how-color-combinations-for-kente-cloth.html for the related pancocojams post entitled "How The Color Combinations For Kente Cloth Stoles Have Changed For African American Graduating Students."
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WHAT ARE THE PAN-AFRICAN COLORS AND WHAT DO THEY MEAN?
From https://medium.com/illumination-curated/why-most-african-flags-use-the-red-yellow-and-green-colors-61e90d6164c Why Most African Flags Use the Red, Yellow, and Green
Colors?
The Untold Story Behind Most African Flags by Bisi Media, Feb. 22, 2021
"On October 11th, 1897, a year after Ethiopia defended itself
from Italian colonization at the Battle of Adwa, Emperor Menelik II authorized
the creation of a flag containing a rectangular tri-color from top to bottom:
red, yellow, and green.
[...]
These three colors red, green, and yellow with the inclusion
of black will later be known as the Pan-African colors.
Although the meaning of the individual colors used in a
country’s flag may differ from country to country; the countries of the flags
that make use of the Pan-African colors have similar meaning with green
representing the unique nature of the continent having good land for
agriculture, red representing the blood, and common heritage of Africans during
the fight against oppression from colonialism, yellow representing the wealth
of Africa, and finally, black which signifies the color of the people."...
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The overarching meaning of pan-African colors are Black unity and Black pride.
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ARTICLE EXCERPTS ABOUT SOME PAN-AFRICAN FLAGS
Excerpt #1:
From http://www.mapsofworld.com/flags/africa.html Flags Of African Countries
Last Updated On : February 13, 2013
"Africa is the second largest continent on Earth, with an area of about 30,221,532 square miles (11,668,599 square miles), and covering over 20 percent of the Earth's land area. Africa is made up of 54 independent countries, as well as 9 territories and a few de facto states. About 1 billion people live on the African continent.
Each of the countries of Africa has its own national flag. Many flags of African countries use colors referred to as Pan-African colors, which can be any combination of the following colors: red, green, gold (or yellow), and black. This color combination has been used in Africa for many years, and was probably taken from the Ethiopian flag.
While not every African nation has a flag that uses Pan-African colors, the majority do. Some of the nations that do not use Pan African colors include Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Somalia."...
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Excerpt #2
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Ethiopia
"Colours
The red, green and yellow were used for the flag of the Ethiopian Empire in 1897, a year after Ethiopia decisively defended itself from Italian colonization at the Battle of Adwa. The flag's tri-colour scheme has existed since the early 19th century, and was previously the official banner of the Ethiopian Empire's Solomonic dynasty. The colours green, yellow, and red have carried special importance since at least the early 17th century.[3]
The royal flag often featured the emblem of a Lion of Judah, a crowned lion carrying a cross centred in the banner's yellow midsection. The flag is understood to be a link between the Ethiopian church, the peoples, and the nation that was united. The processional cross carried by the lion was the former flag or symbol of Ethiopia, and has likewise been in use since at least the early 17th century.[4] Whilst red is currently featured at the bottom of the horizontal tricolour, this was reversed until the mid-19th century. The emblem was added in 1996. What the colours symbolise varies depending on point of view. However, generally, red represents blood spilled in defence of Ethiopia; yellow represents peace and harmony between Ethiopia's various ethnic and religious groups; and green is said to symbolize hope, or the land and its fertility. Upon gaining independence from colonial rule, several newly established countries in Africa adopted these three colours in homage to Ethiopia's resistance against foreign occupation. When adopted by Pan-Africanist polities and organizations for their activities, the colours are often referred to as the Pan-African colours.[5]"
Excerpt #3
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Ghana
"The flag of Ghana was designed and adopted in 1957 and was flown until 1959, and then reinstated in 1966. It consists of the Pan-African colours of red, yellow, and green, in horizontal stripes, with a black five-pointed star in the centre of the gold stripe. The Ghanaian flag was the first African flag after the flag of Ethiopia to feature these colours.
The black star was adopted from the flag of the Black Star Line, a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey that operated from 1919 to 1922,[1] and gives the Ghana national football team their nickname, the Black Stars.
The flag was designed by Theodosia Okoh. The red represents the blood of those who died in the country's struggle for independence from the United Kingdom, the gold represents the mineral wealth of the country, the green symbolises the country's rich forests and natural wealth, and the black star is the symbol of African emancipation.[2]
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Excerpt #4
From https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/06/14/532667081/on-flag-day-remembering-the-red-black-and-green On Flag Day, Remembering The Red, Black And Green
June 14, 2017 by Leah Donnella
.."The Pan-African flag, (also called the Marcus Garvey, UNIA,
Afro-American or Black Liberation flag,) was designed to represent people of
the African Diaspora, and, as one scholar put it, to symbolize "black
freedom, simple."
[…]
The banner, with its horizontal red, black and green
stripes, was adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) at a
conference in New York City in 1920. For several years leading up to that
point, Marcus Garvey, the UNIA's leader, talked about the need for a black
liberation flag. Robert Hill, a historian and Marcus Garvey scholar, says that
Garvey thought of a flag as necessary symbol of political maturity.
"The fact that the black race did not have a flag was considered by Garvey, and he said this, it was a mark of the political impotence of the black race," Hill explains. "And so acquiring a flag would be proof that the black race had politically come of age."
[…]
The Pan-African flag's colors each had symbolic meaning. Red
stood for blood — both the blood shed by Africans who died in their fight for
liberation, and the shared blood of the African people. Black represented,
well, black people. And green was a symbol of growth and the natural fertility of
Africa.
Garvey and the UNIA framed the need for a flag in a political context, Hill explains. "Everybody immediately seeing that flag would recognize that this is a manifestation of black aspirations, black resistance to oppression."
Some years earlier, white minstrel singers were expressing the importance of flags as a matter of racial pride: In 1900, Will A. Heelan and J. Fred Helf composed a popular song called "Every Race Has a Flag But the Coon."
The refrain was:
"Bonny Scotland loves a thistle,
Turkey has her crescent moon,
and what won't Yankees do for the old red, white and blue?
Every race has a flag but the coon."
The lyrics suggest that at the time, four decades after emancipation, many white people still didn't consider black people full citizens of the United States — or any country, for that matter.
The creation of a flag, then, was a step for black people around the world to claim an identity in their own right. Michael Hanchard, a professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, says that flags are important because they symbolize the union of governance, people and territory.
For black people, the flag means "that they have some
way of identifying themselves in the world. And... to also project to those people
who are not members of this particular national community that they too belong,
that they have membership in a world of communities, a world of nations."
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PAN-AFRICAN COLORS USED THROUGHOUT THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
Video #1: Olodum Rehearsal, Salvador de Bahia [Brazil]
Bloco Olodum, Carnival rehearsal, February 1st 2014, Salvador, Bahia [Brazil]
****Video #2: Nyabinghi Drumming and on Bob Marley Day 2013 [Jamaica]
Members of the Rastafarian community sing and chant as they
play nyabinghi drums at Bob Marly Museum, Jamaica.
Video #3: July 23rd H.I.M Haile Selassie 1..💚💛❤ 126th Anniversary Earthstrong 💚💛❤ Fairfield House Bath UK [United Kingdom]
Rastafari Celebrations...Nyah Bingi gathering 💚💛❤
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Video #4: Bomba Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rico/United States
dan vazquez, Sep
14, 2013
Delegación de Loiza en el 5to encuentro del tambor en
Juncos. Debo hacer la aclaración este video lo tomo mi esposa Tita!
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Google translate from Spanish to English:
Loiza delegation at the 5th meeting of the drum in Juncos. I must make the clarification this video is taken by my wife Tita!
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Video #5: Red, Black and Green of the African flag [United States]
Dan Hanson, Feb. 2, 2014
Khalid A. Samad from Coalition for a Better Life, Peace in
the Hood told of the many nations using the Red, Black and Green of the African
flag. He spoke at the 40th annual Black History Month Flag Raising Ceremony in
the Rotunda of Cleveland City Hall that took place on February 1, 2014.
http://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups...
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Video #6: We Deserve 2020 Pan African Collegiate Graduation (CA):
Kente Ceremony + Affirmation w/Adrienne Reed [United States]
Pan African Collegiate Collective, Jun 29, 2020
One of the most memorable parts of the historic Black
graduation is the Kente Stole ceremony. The Kente cloth holds many meanings for
our culture, but when it comes to the Black student, the rich fabric serves as
a sign of your successful matriculation from student to living proverb. We
Deserve graduates are led in an affirmation comprised of their own affirmations
to self. Written and led by the executive producer of today's ceremony,
co-founder of Brunch 2 Bomb, and CEO of the Hamba Group, Ms. Adrienne Reed.
#wedeserve #pac3 #wedeserveblackgrad
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Video #7: 2021 Donning of the Kente Ceremony for Elon University's
School of Law & School of Health Sciences [United States]
Elon University, Dec. 14, 2021 [Elon, North Carolina]
Associate Professor Buffie Longmire-Avital, director of Elon
University's Black Lumen Project, delivers remarks as part of the Donning of
the Kente ceremony on December 10, 2021, for School of Law and School of Health
Sciences graduates in the Class of 2021.
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Video #8: March to raise the black, red and green flag for Black History month
Fred Hanson, Feb. 9, 2015
The 41st annual Black History Month Flag Raising ceremony
took place at Cleveland City Hall on Saturday February 7, 2015. Participants marched from inside City Hall
outside to the steps. Then Dr. Eugene
Jordan explained the significance of Black History Month which started as Negro
History Week in 1926 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. The event was presented by the
Underground Railroad Society, the Coalition for a Better Life DBA Peace in the
Hood and other community organizations.
http://www.clevelandpeople.com/groups...
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