MyWeku

The black star in the middle of the gold stripe gives the Ghana national football team their nickname, the Black Stars.

The flag of Ghana was designed and first used upon the attainment of independence in 1957. The red represents the blood of those who died in the country’s struggle for independence, the gold represents the mineral wealth of the country, the green symbolises the country’s rich forests and natural wealth. Like the flag of Ethiopia, the Ghana flag consists of the Pan-African colours of red, gold, and green, in horizontal stripes, with a black five-pointed star in the centre of the gold stripe.

The star was adopted from the flag of the Black Star Line, a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the pan Africanist and entrepreneur that operated from 1919 to 1922.

“Perhaps the largest endeavour of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA,) was the Black Star Steamship Line, an enterprise intended to provide a means for African Americans to return to Africa while also enabling black people around the Atlantic to exchange goods and services. The company’s three ships (one called the SS Frederick Douglass) were owned and operated by black people and made travel and trade possible between their United States, Caribbean, Central American, and African stops. The economically independent Black Star Line was a symbol of pride for blacks and seemed to attract more members to the UNIA . . . . As a result of large financial obligations and managerial errors, the Black Star Line failed in 1921 and ended operations” From Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Ed. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Ms Theodosia Okoh, the designer of the Ghana flag described the significance of the colours and black star as “The red stripe represents the blood our forefathers shed for us during Ghana’s struggle for independence, gold represents our rich mineral resources, green for the green belt on which the country lies and also the vast forests and cash crops which we grow, while the five pointed lone star is the symbol of African emancipation and unity in the struggle against colonialism”.