The Origin of the Flag
GREEN, RED AND BLACK, are the oldest national colors known to man. They are used as the flag of the Black Liberation Movement in America today, but actually date back to the Zinj empires of Ancient Africa, which existed thousands of years before Rome, Greece, England or America.
The Red is for the blood. The Green is for the land. The Black is for the Black people. The symbolism of the flag as used by the Republic of New Afrika is obvious. The Black is on the bottom. We in the Western Hemisphere must obtain land, represented by green, which is at the top. It is so placed because, until black people in this hemisphere obtain the land they will remain on the bottom; and because the acquisition of land is the highest and noblest aspiration for black men in this continent, since without land there can be no freedom, just independence, or equality.
The red, or the blood, stands at the center of all things. We lost our land through blood; we cannot Gain it except through blood. We must redeem our lives through blood. Without the shedding of blood there can be no redemption of this race. Yet the red stripe is slightly smaller than either the black or the green. It is smaller because the bloodshed and sorrow will not last always. They are not the most important part of the picture. The red simply stands in our flag as a reminder of the truth of history, and that men must gain and keep their liberty, even at the risk of bloodshed.
The colors were resurrected by the Hon. Marcus Garvey, Father of African Nationalism, as the symbol of the struggle sons and daughters of Africa, wherever they may be. Since the 1950's when the independence struggling began to reap fruit, the Green, Red and Black have been plainly adopted by Lybia, Kenya and Afghanistan. Other African states have included the colors of Black and Red, combined with Yellow , or white.
Our flag has no place for white. Not even as a border. Kenya has the black on top; where indeed it must be, since they have a base of land (green) on which their freedom rests. They have the red in the center covered with a sword and shield, as an ever present reminder that the price of liberty is bloodshed, and armed struggle.
The colors were established in 1920 as the banner of the Universal Negro Improvement Assn., and adopted as the symbol of the African in America at the convention of the Negro People's of the World. It is a symbol of the devotion of all African people to the liberation of the African Continent, and the establishment of a Nation in Africa ruled by descendants of slaves from the Western World.
With the formation of the Republic of New Africa, it has become in addition, the symbol of the devotion of African People in America to the establishment of an independent African Nation on the North American Continent
Thus, the colors were not chosen at any limited convention of Black persons; but have been, in centuries past, and are now, the emblem of true black hope and pride, as an embodiment of pan-africanism and black nationalism.
