ST. LOUIS — Kickstart Black History Monday and watch the raising of the Red, Black and Green Flag in downtown St. Louis outside city hall on Feb. 1 to honor African American heritage and history in the United States.
Join the St. Louis African American Aldermanic Caucus (AAAC) at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 1, on the St. Louis City Hall grounds at Market Street adjacent to 13th Street in Washington Square Park.
The flag will be on display inside and outside of city hall throughout the month. Its launch will serve as a kick-start to the array of Black History Monday events and activities in the city and surrounding area.
The event is free and open to the public and will include brief orations.
St. Louis was one of two cities to initially raise the flag in honor of Black history, which dates back to about a decade ago, according to a press release from the city.
The Red, Black and Green Flag, also known as the African American Heritage Flag, honors Black History Month, which starts on Feb. 1 each year in the U.S. and showcases the blood, liberation and abundance of the "motherland" Africa and those throughout the African diaspora.
Red represents the blood that each Black person shares between them from their African ancestors who survived the Atlantic Slave Trade and journey to the U.S., where blood was also shed during slave revolts, Jim Crow and racial injustice and lynchings. Black represents the African American demographic as a whole. Green represents the natural wealth of Africa and the cradle of civilization.
The flag was created by Marcus Garvey, a pan-Africanist and activist, and was formally adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founded by Garvey, at their 1920 Convention in Madison Square Garden, according to the AAAC. It was outlined in Article 39 of the UNIA’s Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World.
The event was urged by a resolution sponsored by the African American Aldermanic Caucus members and passed by the entire St. Louis Board of Aldermen. The main sponsor of the resolution was Alderman Samuel Moore with all Caucus members co-sponsoring.