<P> The Pan-African flag--also known as the UNIA flag, Afro - American flag, Black Liberation 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 (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 in New York City . Variations of the flag can and have been used in various countries and territories in Africa and the Americas to represent Pan-Africanist ideologies . Several Pan-African organizations and movements have often employed the emblematic tri-color scheme in various contexts . </P> <P> The flag was created in 1920 by members of UNIA in response to the enormously popular 1900 coon song "Every Race Has a Flag but the Coon". which 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: </P> <P> 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...</P> <P> The Universal Negro Catechism, published by the UNIA in 1921, refers to the colors of the flag meaning: </P>

What is the black and red american flag